Day 11: Speaking in Tongues (Song-a-day January)

 

Day 11: Speaking In Tongues
By David Coile

Part of my daily songwriting project for January 2025

Lyrics:

You speak in broken English
My grammar kind of sucks
If we need a common language, though
I think we're still in luck

My lips still whistle
And my chest still hums
Let's start a new sentence
And see what it becomes

A subject, a predicate
Two nouns and a verb
Maybe an adjective
That's sure to strike a nerve

If you're looking for poetry
I've got nothing to report
But if you're looking for romance
Well, I'm a linguist of a sort

We can still communicate
But we don't need no words
'Cause it's so fun, yeah it's so fun
Speaking in tongues with you

When you ask me a question
I stammer and I stumble
I can't enunciate
Can't navigate the syllables

But I know you know the word
That I've been thinking of
Between and "I" and an "you"
It's fits just like a glove

Enchanted by your accent
I'm enthralled by your drawl
If you whisper my name
I'm gonna answer the call

I think I understand
I think I've made the translation
When you pull me in your arms
It's a sweet articulation

We can still communicate
But we don't need no words
'Cause it's so fun, yeah it's so fun
Speaking in tongues with you

***

Details:

A couple days ago, I was writing to the prompt "The Song of a Poet" and I had considered writing about a bad poet trying to get laid... but ultimately didn't. Today's prompt (well, yesterday's prompt-- I'm a day behind because I did a co-write yesterday) from Timmy Riordan's Fearless Songwriter program was "Tongues All Broken". For whatever reason, I decided to recycle the horny poet theme.

When I'm writing so many songs in a short period of time, my method for differentiating the songs is to try different rhythms. I don't think I've used this rhythm yet this year, and it led to a jaunty song. At first, it was sounding like "American Music" by the Violent Femmes or "Have I The Right" by the Honeycombs, but I got around that by talk singing the verses. Then the chorus melody emerged naturally from that.

I like what I call "Jargon Songs". These are songs where I can open up a glossary on some topic and use it as a primary source for lyrics. This is like that, in that there were specific words about language that I wanted to use; though, of course, I know most of these words already. But I was hoping to do some clever wordplay, and I kept referring to grammar guides hoping to stumble upon the right thing.

This is a corny song, but I like it!