Hey, Yorkshire:

The changes that I make in lyrics of traditional songs are mostly when I feel that the line doesn't fit the rhythm of the song. I'll have to think for a minute of an example. Most recently, I guess, the bass singer in my quartet was having trouble with some of the words on a song he was singing the lead on, to the point where he was ready to give up on doing it. I ended up learning the words of the song, and took a word out of a line or two so that the phrasing fit the rhythm of the song, and he was able to learn it. The lines as written were:

You know that Daniel he prayed
Three times a day
God sent down an angel
And rolled the stone away

I just took "down" out of the third line because Joe was having trouble fitting all the words into the beat. That didn't really change the meaning of the song... just made it flow a little more comfortably (although I didn't have a problem singing it with all the words in..)

I'll have to think of some other examples. Mostly it's fitting the lines a little more comfortably to the rhythm (although there are plenty of songs where the lines don't fit, that I like just as they are.)

Now, on my own songs, I don't consider them finished until I've lived with them for a couple of months. Just to keep the song coming, I'll often write a couple of filler lines... lines that complete a verse that I'm not really happy with. As I live with the song, different lines will often come to me and I'll drop the old ones out.

Another thing that's different about writting songs more in the tradition of black gospel, which I've been doing recently, is that it's not unusual to change the lines to a song, within the song. For example, I just wrote a song, Lord, Send Me. I First was singing a line:

"If you're walking by my side, then I'll never be denied." The words fit fine, and the meaning of the line made sense to me. As I was singing it more, I changed it to "If you're walking by my side, then I'll be justified." That made sense, too. Now, I usually sing it "If you're walking by my side, then I'll be satisfied." But because the line is in the chorus, which is repeated several times, and when I do the song with the group, they are just singing "Ooooh" in harmony on that line, I may sing "justified" one time around, and "satisfied" another.

Writing a song is a process and the song evolves through time. For me, it usually reaches a final form that I am happy with and I rarely change a line, years later.

(I have no intention of changing the new moon rising line, for example.) The song it's in, Taste Of Sin is a humorous song about a guy who is picked up by a woman in a bar one night, and when she takes him out in the country in her car, they get in the back seat, and she has her poodle in the car with her. When he starts to make a move on the woman, the dog starts growling, and he twists the dog's ear to shut it up. She gets angry, and she throws him out of the car and he has to walk home. And he looks up and sees the new moon rising. Maybe you can see it rising better after you've had a few drinks.

Jerry