The Hollow Girl

Usual story, this is an early draft. I've been mulling this one for a couple of days, but haven't written any of it down til now. See what y'think:)

The Hollow Girl

There she goes,
The Hollow girl.
Her feet don’t touch the floor.
Her bones are filled
With air and steam.
She’s passed before you notice her.

Floating through,
The Hollow girl.
Her eyes are touched with gold,
The crowded streets,
Don’t slow her down,
She leaves no footsteps on the road.

All alone,
This Hollow girl,
She tries to touch the world,
She fills her shoes,
With rocks and stones
And weighs her neck with ropes of pearl.

There she goes,
The Hollow girl,
Her feet just touch the floor,
Her shoes are filled
With rocks and stones,
She’s passed before you notice her.

I like it.

My first thought was that she was anorexic - literally and metaphorically empty.
Filling her shoes with rocks & stones - a prefiguring of suicide?

looks like lyrics.....a good melody, and it might ....just.....work.

let's make a song out of it....

needs a 3 or 4 line chorus first.....and maybe a bridge.

It's perfect, it's excellent, it's brilliant. It's world class. A+++ will read again.

Because it's all metaphor, and so open, you can bring whatever you might bring to it. You can find grimness in it, or a simple morality tale. You can relate it to yourself or to people you know. You don't know where it begins or if it ends. It's a reflecting pool on reality, given new form by tiny waves from a stone dropped in.

Would make a beautiful song. I would love to interpret the imagery on the drumset. Hollow, as no cymbal defining the beats, snare recorded on overhead mics (think the breathy snare sound of Mercy, Mercy Me ... or World In My Eyes - the electronic version of the same). The sound/feeling of the air and steam, the crowded streets; the weight of the rocks and stones on the floor tom and bass drum. Basically trying to touch as few instruments as possible to imlpy a structure, a hollow structure...

Nice writing Dana. I keep going through it and it keeps evolving. Excellent work.

If it's not demeaning to the real writing, I submit a simple 4 line chorus and potential bridge:

You think you know her
Yes, do you just think you know her?
No, she says, no, no, no
Cos there’s nothing of her left to know

Check the shop window baby
You just
Check your reflection honey

Of course depends on the way the rhythm actually runs

DanaC -- I see dead people.

In every phrase I see references to suicide (hanging, drowning), death, or the afterlife.

Is this what you intended?

(I just looked back and noticed that SG made a similar connection.)

People please! If it should be a lyric then DanaC will have posted it as a potential lyric. It stands perfectly on its own.

The dual nature of the word "passed" is how she intentionally puts death in our mind. There is a specific change in the girl between stanza one and stanza four; the girl has changed herself in stanza three, the only active stanza. But the identical ending line suggests to you that the meaning has changed.

It is practically mathematical in its nature, and if it were a symphony it would be Bach.

at this point dana is perplexed. she wonders if Undertoad is being sarcastic, or if he really likes the poem. On one hand, it is a pretty good piece. on the other...is it really THAT good? Isn't he getting a little carried away? Will they really make a song out of it? This perplexity has stunned her into silence.

Is Undertoad that freakin good?

I'm not gaming her one bit. I took two semesters of poetry in college, I was practically a poetry minor my Soph. year.

Thanks for the very, very kind words! The idea of death is suggested but is also intended to be ambiguous. The Hollow girl is one of life's 'invisibles', one of those people who don't quite seem to connect with the world. She may work in an office, but nobody remembers her name; you may step aside for her on the street, but you don't really see her. It's like she exists on a slightly different plane. The rocks and stones are her attempt to become substantial, tangible, visible. To leave some mark on the world and exist on our plane.

And yeah lj, the Toad is that freakin good :P

Come on, We aal no Undertoad is a god. Not THE but A.

I really do like the Dana. I dapple with writing (hears his wife grumble that its better than that) and this is breath taking. I also have to agree that even before I saw the other posts I was thinking it seemed like a song lyric. Good work should flow like a song even if its not. Brava!

Poetry makes good lyrics. Well - Jerusalem did :)
Good lyrics read like poetry

Ohhh Jerusalem, my favourite poem/song. Always chokes me a little. When we buried my friend Alan about a month back, that was one of the songs we sang, broke my heart. Buried a good socialist to a socialist anthem.

I always have a melody in my head when I write.....not necessarily a 'tune' but some kind of melody to make the words flow. Poetry or prose, there's always an underlying melody.

Sundae, that chorus you came up with was really nice. It reminded me of a song, but I'm damned if i can pin down which one. You should try your hand at song writing (if you haven't already).

Glad you said that - I was worried you might think it was disrespectful
I wouldn't compare my doggerel to poetry
But a complex verse needs a very simple chorus, and I can do simple :)

No, I can't write lyrics because I can't imagine music
Am okay when I have it - we used to play Add An Extra Verse when our systems went down at work, but the structure was already set (to a current song) and the easy way out was to be rude/ topical

I'd never be able to sing Jerusalem at an emotionally charged event
Bring me my bow of burning gold raises all the hairs on my arms just thinking about it

It's the 'Dark satanic mills' that usually gets me. At Alan's funeral though it was 'Bring me my bow of burning gold' that floored me. Alan spent his life fighting the good fight. The old soldiers from the Royal British Legion (Alan was a member, as am I, as a supporter) sent an honour guard. The standard bearer lowered the standard to the sound of the Last post and then we sang Jerusalem.....the Parish Church is a big place, but it was standing room only.....so many socialists and trade unionists there to bury a comrade. He was my friend but he was also a comrade. Was very moving....I still miss him.

DanaC;354708 wrote:

I always have a melody in my head when I write.....not necessarily a 'tune' but some kind of melody to make the words flow. Poetry or prose, there's always an underlying melody.

would you hum a few bars? or do you lay it down to a song that already exists? I do that sometimes when i write....just to assist with meter. I've written a couple to 'lithium'

it WOULD be cool to turn it into music, ya know. one thing to talk about it.....but i have ways of getting things done sometimes....

You'd have to be interested, tho, dana....as it IS your baby.

I just find that when I come up with words they form a tune; not an existing one usually, just a kind of melody that sort of automatically comes with the first few lines. Different every time and usually very simple. I don't think of a tune and then set the words to it, it just sort of happens. It's the way I've always written, prose or poetry. Very occassionally I'll have an existing tune in my head when I'm writing, but more often the tune and the words come at the same time.

lj if you think this one could work to music, I'd be happy for you to play around with it (happy and very flattered :P).

the structure w/ music would be better.. then again that's the guitar player in me. I like it though.. sorry just read the initial piece (prefer to not read other thought on the matter, just a first impression and all.... ) although it seems to be a piece set to music.. redundant much?

DanaC;354708 wrote:

Ohhh Jerusalem, my favourite poem/song. Always chokes me a little. When we buried my friend Alan about a month back, that was one of the songs we sang, broke my heart. Buried a good socialist to a socialist anthem.

'Jerusalem' certainly has an inbuilt power all its own. Did you ever sing a hymn called 'Non Nobis Domine' - it was one I remember from school days and, for me, it had a similar strength to it - so few hymns did/do.

this fucking song:
[youtube]wEhmFtG6J1c[/youtube]

is making it difficult for me to arrive at a melody for this.

-hoping to exorcise it by playing it.