Social media is a double edged sword. On the one side, I’m easily able to share a quick moment in my life with friends. On the other, my long form writing skills have gone straight down the tubes. The Story Bones project is an effort to dust off those parts of my brain before they atrophy completely in a way that also feeds my bardic interests. So, as I dive back into the world of long form writing, I thought I’d start with a deconstruction of how I wrote my latest song.
Heart of the Griffin was an assignment from my bardic mentor, Thomas, to write a new song about Northshield. The finished lyrics are:
(chorus)
The heart of the griffin is ten thousand strong
An army of kinsmen, one voice raised in song
We cry “long live Northshield!” wherever we roam
The heart of the griffin, forever our home(verses)
The blood of the North land burns bright in our veins
Its fire keeps us warm on the coldest of plains
We raise high the banners of sable and gold
To welcome all into our kingdom’s great hold———-
Each deed laid with care in the floor of this hall
To build a foundation of service to all
From humble beginnings we spring and return
A heritage fit for our children to learn———-
These four walls were raised with the traits we embrace
The first stands for honor, the second for grace
The third is for courage, where we take our stand
The last, to keep laughter and joy close at hand———-
When thunder and lightning consume the night sky
The wind howls above and the waters rise high
A blanket of shields blossoms up from the clay
Our crown of all colors keeps darkness at bay———-
Our borders are not what define who we are
At home in our hearts though we travel afar
So raise high the banners of sable and gold
And be one of Northshield, the griffin, the bold———-
We cry “long live Northshield!” wherever we roam
The heart of the griffin, forever our home
More precisely, I was tasked with researching existing songs about Northshield (and we do love to sing about how much we love Northshield, so there were more than a few), find five things that they had in common (10 things for bonus points), and write a new song incorporating those elements by our next scheduled event, which was about six weeks out.
Some of the pieces I looked at include:
- A Song of Northshield, by Owen Alun
- Pride of My Heart, My Northshield, by Ingus Moen
- Three Words, by Eliane Halevy
- Shield My Kinsmen, by Skjaldvør Kormáksdøttir, called Wyndreth
- Sons of the Dragon, by Garraed Galbraith
- Hey, Ho! The Griffin!, by John Chandler
- The Griffin and the Star, by Conn MacNeill
- Crap, Man, It’s Cold Here in Northshield, by Salienor the Foolefeathre
By and large, these songs:
- Were acapella
- Had an easy melody (singable by mortals)
- Included a chorus
- Lent themselves well to harmony (another thing we love)
- Expressed love of country
- Mentioned home
- Mentioned the North and/or the cold
- Included kingdom symbols (the North star, the griffin, the kingdom motto)
- Mentioned family (the shield wall, children)
In relatively short order, I had a concept, which was that Northshield was the home in our hearts. Northshield wasn’t a place; it was a people. For the record, this was about the same time that Thor: Ragnarok was released, though I hadn’t seen it and was not yet aware of the story line. Suffice it to say that that was the sentiment I was going for.
Since the song needed a rousing chorus, I started there to set the tone. For me, the words and music tend to come to me together. Sometimes the words will tell me how they want to be sung. Other times the music will tell me what words to look for, though that writing process is generally more painful because it means something in my heart is trying to get out that my brain doesn’t yet understand. In this case, I got lucky and the words came first. Repetition makes a melody easy to remember, so I started with a simple descending melody for the first line, gave it a slight variation on the second that had more of a rising feel, repeated the original melody on the third, and closed with a resolution that played above and below the central note before landing on it.
Next, I needed to figure out how to describe these people and build their metaphysical house. So, into the margins went the classic types of people and pieces of a home. From there, it was mostly just a matter of building the house from the ground up. Not as easy as it sounds, as it turns out.
By the deadline, I had a workable song, but it wasn’t great. Yes, it was upbeat, nationalistic, and had a catchy melody and chorus, but the analogy to the house was, at best, poorly drawn, and the metaphor was not developed enough to carry through. The shortened final line, which I had purposefully done to allow people plenty of time to breathe, was a little weird in performance and the song was too short overall, even beginning it with the chorus. But it had promise, and Thomas told me to set it aside for a little while and then rewrite it.
A little while turned out to be about four months. Long enough to get over the frustration of not getting high marks on the first full draft and not so long that it was forgotten. At first, I intended to keep the chorus as it was but, as I reworked the verses, I realized that it could use some tuning up as well.
“From elders to children” was a cheap line and a bit kludgy, but it was my most direct tie to the people. Remembering Their Excellencies Kaydian and Cassandra’s recent reign with a motto of “One Kingdom, One Army” provided the answer. We are family. An entire army’s worth.
In poetry, you generally try to boil the words down until every word matters; to eliminate the conversational equivalent of “um” and “well.” Adding words back in becomes tricky because it’s easy to fall back on cheap, filler words (the, and, etc.) to get the syllable count. Since I already had a “the” at the beginning of the final line, I couldn’t go there. Likewise, “heart of the griffin” was locked in because I wanted to keep the tie to the first line of the chorus and the title of the song. That left expanding on the reference to home.
The heart of the griffin is where we call home
The heart of the griffin, the place we call home
Both fit the syllable count but used simple filler words that were unsatisfying. For the last line of the chorus, I needed something that would evoke a feeling of pride and belonging.
Thus, the original chorus:
The heart of the griffin is ten thousand strong
From elders to children, one voice raised in song
We cry “long live Northshield!” wherever we roam
The heart of the griffin is home
became the new chorus:
The heart of the griffin is ten thousand strong
An army of kinsmen, one voice raised in song
We cry “long live Northshield!” wherever we roam
The heart of the griffin, forever our home
Onward to the verses! The original first verse was just weak overall. It was bland and muddy, full of words wasted on describing a physical place when that’s not what the song was about. It was, in fact, exactly what the song was NOT about.
In the rewrite, Thomas pointed out that the blood should burn hot rather than bright to keep the analogy more focused, but I liked the double ‘b’ sound of “burns bright” better. Also, I wanted to avoid any suggestion of Northshielders being hot-tempered.
Original Verse:
We sing of the North land where we long to be
Of great rolling hills where the winter runs free
And whether the feast hall be simple or grand
It’s not for the trappings we stand
New Verse:
The blood of the North land burns bright in our veins
Its fire keeps us warm on the coldest of plains
We raise high the banners of sable and gold
To welcome all into our kingdom’s great hold
The second verse had a better start, but got weird in the second half. I struggled with it a lot, trying to find a way to cram in the idea of something big being made out of many small things. Eventually, I gave up and added the reference to children here that I had removed from the chorus. I’m still not completely satisfied with it, but it stays until I can figure out something better.
Original Verse:
Each deed laid with care in the floor of this hall
To build a foundation of service to all
An ocean of droplets, too wide to be known
A force to outlast any stone
New Verse:
Each deed laid with care in the floor of this hall
To build a foundation of service to all
From humble beginnings we spring and return
A heritage fit for our children to learn
After the foundation, walls typically come next, but the third verse all but abandoned the house metaphor completely. The walls needed to be much more prominent and I needed to define what they stood for. After the rewrite, I think this is my favorite verse, particularly the second line. I love the way it rolls off my tongue.
This verse was also the last one to receive final tweaking, with assistance from Dahrien on the third line, where I was struggling to find the right words. I often find it helpful to show my work around a little bit as it reaches the final stages. In addition to sharing an advance peek into a new project, I like to get a different perspective before it’s too late to fix some egregious thing I didn’t notice because my focus was somewhere else in the piece.
Original Verse:
When we raise the shieldwall together we stand
And charge to the fray where the crown does command
On swift wings descending, strong steel at our sides
With honor and courage our guides
New Verse:
These four walls were raised with the traits we embrace
The first stands for honor, the second for grace
The third is for courage, where we take our stand
The last, to keep laughter and joy close at hand
The fourth verse also had trouble sticking to the house analogy. It was supposed to be the capstone, the roof, but it never actually referenced it anywhere. Also, while the demons were meant to reference an internal struggle rather than a physical manifestation, they were ill-fitted to the song and had to go. Thomas suggested the new second line which conveyed the sentiment nicely without delving into the realm of fantasy. I’m not sure if the second half of the verse is as clear as it could be, but it’s definitely better than it was.
Original Verse:
When thunder and lightning consume the night sky
When darkness descends and the demons draw nigh
Our hall will stand firm for the place we call home
Will follow wherever we roam
New Verse:
When thunder and lightning consume the night sky
The wind howls above and the waters rise high
A blanket of shields blossoms up from the clay
Our crown of all colors keeps darkness at bay
All of the pre-existing verses were now covered, but I was still one verse short. I needed something to bring it all home and reinforce the overall point of the song.
Thus, the final verse:
Our borders are not what define who we are
At home in our hearts though we travel afar
So raise high the banners of sable and gold
And be one of Northshield, the griffin, the bold
The process of writing, and then re-writing a song over an extended period of time is new to me, but I’m certain that I got a better song out of the effort. This tool will definitely go into my kit.