If I was a pirate
With the wind upon my back
A sailing ship, a treasure chest
A keg of Kingston Black
The stars above to guide me
The sword my saving grace
If I saw you drawing water
In some far and distant place
Could I give it up -
Could I give it up for love?
Could I give it up -
Could I give it up for love?

If your fortunes rested squarely
On your fine unblemished name
If I was just a drifter 
And seduction was my game
Could you not resist temptation
Would you pluck it from the vine
You risk your reputation
Every time you cross that line
But could you give it up -
Could you give it up for love?
Could you give it up -
Could you give it up for love?

Now you’ve got a diamond bracelet
And a house up on the hill
Your life appears so perfect
But there’s something missing still
You are strong in your conviction
But you’re changing every day
Now that Fate and Serendipity
Have all come out to play
Could you give it up -
Could you give it up for love?
Could you give it up -
Could you give it up for love?

Oh my God, boss u have a gift, thats got to be it. It is amazing it makes me feel like balderdash. Love the last stanza. It has a kind of Gabriel Garcia's A hundred years of Solitude feel to it.

quite lovely on the page...mature rhyming...tells a story...evokes emotion...all the qualities of a great poem.

(oh - and by the way...I think you mean "Fate" not "Fait"    )

Thanks for the catch, Spoon. I looked at it a hundred times and never saw it!

Very provocative.

You fantasize about giving it all up for love then you bring the question of sacrifice into the office and then you wreak havoc with the guilty conscience.

Is this now recent or from a while ago?

Yes it's a whole story in a song.

This is very indicative of my current style. I wrote it about a month ago. Yes, it does progress from a seemingly simple scenario to a more complex one -but it's really just different sides of the same coin. Love is often there for the taking, if we are willing to give enough to get it. We think of love as a noun - something to posess. But the love that eludes us is a verb. LOVE IS IN THE GIVING. Could YOU give it up?

would you like some music to it?

apparently, you do not

Anyway, I like it very much - very skillful peom, and it has provoked me musically - i picked up my mandolin and strated playing to it. Loved it too

I did not mean to ignore you. I had not seen your post. You play a mandolin? What else? I will email you about music for this piece, and I truly appreciate your interest - S

cool

I actually used the music for this poem for my christmas song.
You can find it at : http://forum.bandamp.com/Audio_Review/3803.html.

The melody is more-less what it would sound like with this poem.
Would you have liked it?
Maybe we'll do something together in the future

aallllrighty.  let`s see if we can wrap our heads around this.
the first part (at first) i found akward, but i`ve changed my mind after having read it all the way through   that seems to be the case with each song of yours that i review, you scoundrel.  haha.  anyway, the first stanza pitches out good ideas, sort of setting up the idea that -- yes -- he might be a "drifter" as you say it, but he`s secure enough all by himself (so he may think!)  he`s got his sword to fall back on, regardless of whether or not the situation would be rectified by a sword.  (my gut says that the writer would draw his sword to fix ANY problem that he encounters)

my only complaint about this first stanza is (in short) this:

problem:
it sort of feels funny moving into the "But if I saw you drawing water" part.  i think it`s because up until that point, the section is just a really long clause

If I was a pirate
With the wind upon my back
A sailing ship, a treasure chest
A keg of Kingston Black
The stars above to guide me
The sword my saving grace

i can see how the clause could have ended back at the end of "A keg of Kingston Black", and how "The stars..." and "The sword..." could be independant thoughts of their own, but i had to scratch my head for a second to decide that that`s what happened   anyway..

solution:  maybe a word or two added could help the "But if i saw..." part stick out less.  right now, it moves from clause to refute the previous statement (the "But" part). 

personally, this is how i`d tackle it...  i`d change the line "The sword my saving grace" to the slight variation: "This sword is my saving grace".  admittedly, i`m adding emphasis to this line about the sword because of my impression about it that i mentioned earlier.  this way, the clause trails off with "The stars above to guide me..." and then picks up with a complete sentence/thought before jumping into "But..."

it`s either that, or you can change "But..." to another clause, by saying "And" instead of "But".  however... that may throw off the question that follows... Could I give it up for love?

2nd section... i think this section is great.  it`s fine the way it is   i like the "You risk your reputation" line.  it`s powerful.  it makes the audience`s imagination do the work for you.

3rd section... once again, i think it`s good.  particularly, i like the lines:

But you’re changing every day
Now that Fate and Serendipity
Have all come out to play

particularly, i like the first line there... "But you`re changing every day"  once again, it makes the audience do all the hard work while leaving your back door closed to destructive critism

i like this writing pattern over your "Light of Ages" style.  both are good, but this style fits me better  

congrats for using punctuation correctly.  and for spelling "you are"  as you`re instead of your.

i`m glad to see an intelligent lyricist out there   not that everyone else is retarded or anything, but the bad stands out faster and further than the good.  it`s a fact of life

XO, TLS

I was wondering if I could slip that long clause past anyone. I think it can be sung in a way that it passes for poetic license. Can I catch a break here? 

I really wanted to de-emphasize the line about the sword because it is more effective to refer to it with a bit of non-chalance - as a given that he divulges with easy confidence.

The first and second verses approach the subject, probe the dynamics. The third verse gets down to brass tacks. The third verse is the reality of the situation - sometimes you have to make your decisions before you're ready.

 

i think you can pull it off, if you can get the music right    i was thinking about the sword line too-- you can keep it the way it is, for sure.  and really, it`s just as powerful one way or the other, it`s just a preference i would have snapped to right at first.  but there`s certainly nothing wrong with it, as it stands now    and the reason that i say so is that you`ve already got your character mostly figured out, whereas many people are quick to write out their characters without understanding why they write certain lines.  they`re just anxious to pop something down that sounds interesting.  but you, you seem to have a grasp on what the line really means, and you`re not afraid to defend it

I changed the line, "But if I say you drawing water" to "If I saw you drawing water" It is gramatically better now, so I don't have to worry about slipping it by anyone:)

hehe, there we go though, your post just above made little-to-no sense grammatically anyway.  read your first phrase in quotes

 

XO, TLS