OK, here are the lyrics to one of my more recent songs. Yep, a love song written for my wife. She deserves better, but this is what I've got. Let me know what you think.

What in the World

Verse
What in the world would I do without you by my side, right where you belong
What would I do if I reached for your love and all that I reached for was gone
I’d try to be strong and keep moving along but I think I would just want to hide
I’d wave and I’d smile and I’d stay for a while but there would be nothing inside

Verse
All I could ask is to have you to hold in my arms, in my dreams, in my life
All I could want is to know that you want to stay here, be my woman my wife
I’ll love you through time and I’ll know that you’re mine, and you’ll always be first in my heart
You’ll know that I love you and put no one above you, and nothing could tear us apart.

Bridge
This is the way that I feel and I know that true love will not fade away
I’ll keep you beside me, and hold you inside me, and we’ll take it day by day

Verse
What in the world would I do without you by my side, right where you belong
What would I do if I reached for your love and all that I reached for was gone
I’d try to be strong and keep moving along but I think I would just want to hide
I’d wave and I’d smile and I’d stay for a while but there would be nothing inside

Extro
What in the world, what in the world, what in the world would I do?
What in the World, what in the world, what in the world would I do?

It feels a little rappy and I just can't find the flow. It's got good content but needs to be rewritten. I usually rewrite my songs three or four times before I get where I want to be, so don't be discouraged by this at all. You've got the idea, now give it some rhythm man.

Cheers.

these are really beautiful lyrics...you don't have a chorus but you dont HAVE to have one, depends on how the song flows.

Yeah, a chorus usually is a nice way to close up a song, though.

Actually, I think your lyrics are probably much better than mine. I tend to get all hung up in making things rhyme, which sometimes runs me towards awkward phrasing and other issues. You seems to have a much more fluid style of writing, with more feeling in it. I have never been very good at making my lyrics sound emotional, they always seem a bit dry to me.  Similarly, the music I wrote for that came out kind of light, airy, and poppish in my opinion; but that is what I wrote and I seldom change anything I write by very much.

I am going to think about your lyrics and see if I can re-mold the tune to work with it. Please feel free to re-do the melody to match your very good lyrics.

Chris

You're right, of course, there is no actual chorus for the song. That is very unusual for me, and really about as adventurous as I ever get. From my perspective, I did without a chorus, used a two-part verse, added in a bridge part, and actually wrote an extro. For me, that is astonishing; I usually write to the verse verse chorus verse end type of formula, very simple, like my music.
Thank you for the kind words, aetherus, I happen to be quite fond of them and it is nice to hear people make comments like that. Oh yeah, the constructive ones are good, too, but for me it's the praise that motivates!

Thanks! I'm glad you like it, it's one of my favorites. I may be a bit hard on my own work, but I am still pretty happy with most of it. Believe me, I do have some real junk that I would never inflict upon the fine people here. I try to post stuff that I believe has some value of some kind.
Your writing is really very good, I like what you've done.
Chris

Thanks Flyer! Actually, I have a couple I plan to post fairly soon, I'll start recording again when my new microphone arrives. One I just wrote, and one that I plan to post around the end of next month. That one is a bit of a ghost story, so I thought I would post it around Halloween (I wrote it on Halloween, in fact.)
But you are absolutely right when you talk about being our own worst critics. The best advice I ever got was from a very successful lyricist; who told me to never judge my own music, and never allow other people's judgments of my music to affect me.