Choose a short poem with a strong theme or imagery and set the words to music.
Decide whether a major or minor key will best suit the theme of the poem.
Start by fitting rhythms to the words (find where the natural accents come) and then add the melody.
Open the song with a piano introduction.
Include some piano figurations which reflect the words.
Close the song with a short piano passage…
From you I learned love
With grace from above
It's for you I live
And I want to give
You are the reason
That fills each season
When I hear love I think of you
You are my world and best friend too
Patiently you sit,
Each morning outside,
Purring softly you wait,
To come inside.
Your green eyes light up,
And you jump up high,
My dear friend,
My heart is glad.
Your white and black fur,
Soft like silk,
You rest by the fire,
Or the windowsill.
You lay on my lap,
Looking into my eyes,
My gentle friend,
I wish you were mine.
It's Death again – He's always there
Watching, waiting – e'er the stare!
Every time I look behind
Or reach to pull the window blind,
I catch a glimpse of grubby hood –
A little clue to where he stood;
The glint of light that caught the scythe.
Perhaps if I could pay a tithe…
But O! no use, he'll never go.
The adamant phantom; don't you know
He will but wait until it's time
For me to hear His fateful chime? –
The toll that claims my destiny,
To Hail: 'You're next, it has to be…'
Blue sky enveloping the land,
Waves rushing over pebbles of sand.
Crashing, splashing as the ocean reaches up
like a mighty hand lifting in praise.
Grasping for the Creator the Ancient of Days.
And the wind blows as if in a whisper
softly as about the Earth it passes over.
The birds in melody sing out of His Glory,
the mountains and canyons show as His Majesty
Void, empty, hollow inside
My dreams have fled, my hopes have died
Existence has no reason
Life's just passing with each season
She was my life, my hope, my love
All is gone, passed by thereof
The hurt is such no one should bear
What's to life, why should I care?
I weep all night for my love gone
My heart is sick, for death I long
Mine eyes well tears for love that's lost
I'll mourn always for the great cost
She sits in silence, in her midnight world
Her faded pictures, of her dancing girls
Her, distant dreamer, on the seas of time
Her happy memories, dancing through her mind
And as the seasons turn the days to years
She holds her pictures, hears the silent cheers
The days grow lonely for the dancing queen
And now she dances only in her dream
Make your way down the face
Of everything we know
And go so far see other places
And other people I won't know about
Breathe in deep, let it out slow
Did you hear it's all my fault again
I know why no one else knows
why I am all alone again
Make it sound so good that I won't be right
And I walk alone tonight
Outside my house and outside my mind
No matter what I say, I'm never right
Lie beneath a spreading tree
With golden flowers in the sun.
Count to five on all the petals,
Never think of five plus one.
Watch the building-crammed horizon,
Sky no longer meeting ground.
Watch the golden flowers wither
Watch the golden dreams fall down