Welcome to Wordplay Thursday!
Today, I’m going to give you a topic, and the wordplay is to show that topic with ONLY sensory images (sight, smell, taste, touch, sound). The point is to have fun with the old Nashville advice that says, “Show me, don’t tell me.” You can just pick one sense, or you can challenge yourself by playing one image from each of the 5 senses.
This week, let’s paint a picture about…
“High School”
Here’s an example to get you started:
“The metallic clang of locker doors shutting and padlocks clamping shut. Orange posters with black letters shout ‘Go Pioneers! #1!’ My backpack pulls on my right shoulder. My finger runs across a wad of dry gum under my desk. My thumb clicks more lead out of my mechanical pencil.”
Now it’s your turn. Show me, don’t tell me!
Oh, and please keep your posts below an R-rating. It’s a family show, after all…
And thanks to Matt Martoccio, Elaine, Ken Matthiessen, Jerry, Nick S., Jeff Green, Dionne Kumpe, Kim Kondrashoff, Wm Curtis, Tomas Giraitis, Terry Klein, Jim King, Carol Katterjohn, Joe Slyzelia and everyone else (here and on Twitter and Facebook) for your great additions to Wordplay Thursday #126 (read it here)! Great job!
Since strong imagery is such an important part of professional-level songwriting, I’ve put together a course on imagery. It’s called, “Use Imagery To Supercharge Your Songwriting (Like The Pros Do)” and it’s available now. And this week, you can get my new course at a discounted price!
The live ONLINE workshops for “Use Imagery To Supercharge Your Songwriting (Like The Pros Do)” are now available for only $60.
That’s 33% off!
This is for a limited time, so don’t delay. The workshops are on February 16 and 18, and a ticket comes with ALL the materials for the full course:
*2 hours of video teaching
*1 hour of audio (great for listening on-the-go)
*50-page ebook
*course workbook
And, of course, you get an hour of additional coaching on the live, online workshop. As long as you have an internet connection, you can join us! (We’ll be using the Fuze online platform, which is free.)
By the end of the course, you’ll have the basic skills to:
- Effectively use both literal and figurative imagery.
- Make your story come to life using imagery.
- Prove your character’s personality using imagery.
- Make your listener connect to your character’s emotions using imagery.
- Hook your listener in the song’s first few lines using imagery.
- And to begin more songs (more easily) using imagery exercises as the start of your songwriting process.
To find out more, just…
CLICK HERE FOR THE FEB. 16 ONLINE WORKSHOP AND COURSE.
CLICK HERE FOR THE FEB. 18 ONLINE WORKSHOP AND COURSE.
God Bless,
Brent
Brent Baxter is a hit songwriter with cuts by Alan Jackson, Randy Travis, Lady Antebellum, Joe Nichols, Gord Bamford, Ruthie Collins, Ray Stevens, and more. He’s written a top 5 hit in the US and a #1 in Canada… so far.
Thousands of little critters making noises distract me. I fix my stiff dried favorite black t-shirt, the one with the skull. As I look up and see the walking dead meandering around the brick and metal ant farm, all of them carrying books like bees bringing nectar to their queen. Even through my stuffy nose I can make out the scents of cheerleaders, jocks, dreams and failed attempts. A bell screams like its miles away and right in my head and the bricks start to shake and quiver. The once walking dead now like a stampede heading for their respective pens looking for A’s instead of hay.
As I walk under center the frozen mud, grass and snow caked on my body actually seem to burn. The two hundred and ten pound line backer across from me is pawing the turf like a wild buffalo and slurring obscenities at me through his mouth piece. Coaches from both side lines are yelling at their player pawns to think and to be ready. The crowd noise builds. Too nervous to spit I still lick my finger tips to better my grip for the game’s final and deciding pass. As I inhale I’m reminded by the sweat of my team mate’s hard work all year long and I don’t want to fail them now. I tap the center’s right thigh to let him know I’m there and start the cadence….
I gulp down some orange juice and stick half a doughnut in my mouth, gather up my books as the folded homework papers I’ve tucked in between the pages start falling out as my father, still in his long johns, delivers his daily warning that I will surely freeze to death as I run out the front door in a mini skirt that is shorter than my ski jacket to barely catch the Big yellow bus that has been idling at the corner awaiting my 100 yard dash down my crusty snow-covered driveway.It’s 7am and 20 below zero as I hit the the ice cold stiff leather seat on the bus. The Big bright yellow transporter slowly pulls away, engine roaring, exhaust steam encircling every window of the bus like a thick, low lying fog. The rythmic squeeking of the seats bouncing in time to the country music the driver has crackling through the old transistor radio he has mounted to the dashboard with silver duct tape. I stare out the window through a beautiful mural of ice crystals,tapping my feet to the surrounding rhythms to keep warm.
With tempered expectations, a deep sigh of angst, and my quirky little smile, I opened the uniform, blue test booklet, and began my last hgh school test. All the sunny days lost…all the cold, frosty morns at the bus stop waiting mpatiently for the laughingly,yellow bus to appear. It had all come down to this, my chuckling last crescendo. Locker cleaned out…check. Books turned in…check. All that remains is the completion of this chemistry final…then hugs and kisses from the cool girls…then hos hazy, lazy days of summer!
Hos…??…lol. ?
I apologize for my poor spelling. That should have been “those…crazy, hazy”. There are a few other errors I am also sorry for..
I apologize to anyone, my poor spelling above, may have offended. I was in in a hurry and did not proofread. Hos, should have been “those”. Again,mI apologize…I was the fourth entry..
I daily notice the lemony scent of freshly waxed floors, the many varieties of perfume that linger in my halls. My walls have witnessed the joy of an A, the agony of an F. My hidden corners have provided opportunity to steal a kiss just after the shrill bell rings and you rush off to class. The conversations in my presence are like the dance of the honey bee, with the addition of animated arms, eyes sometimes wide, words oftentimes hushed and directed closely to the ear next to them. I’m aware of the constant motion of feet across my scuffed–marked surface, some like gazelles, some like turtles. Oh the secrets I keep, the comfort I offer, as you lean against my red brick rough exterior. I will keep you warm in the winter, cool in the summer and dry during the rain. I will create memories, some you might want to forget, but some you will cherish forever. I will be here for your children and maybe even your children’s children, and I will be covered in balloons, banners and old photographs for your return in 10, 15, and maybe even 25 years, and we will reminisce.
I like honey bees too. They carry pollen on their little legs, you know. And the other day, I ate a single serving package of BEES KNEES. It’s a peanut butter and honey snack….minus the hydrogenated oil. ?????
Test!!! Let’s do this ???
I’m sweating seated
And feeling the heat.
The pressure is mounting
When trying to read.
My pen is shaking
As hands shaking too.
Got a strange feeling
On question twenty two.
I smell a rat here
And checking the clock.
Just heard the bell,
So my time is up…
???
Remembering those days… ?
Me too! You stirred some my good memories, man.
??
It was so easy when you think about it now… So careless and nothing to worry about apart from studies ???
High School…..
Smells like teen spirit is what someone once sang, but I dont know what he was trying to say because I couldnt understand the lyrics. Yet, it churned out the dead guy millions of fans. Wow!
I dont know if I want millions of fans. I dont know if I desire millions of greenbacks. Wait, I do want the latter; I aint gonna lie.
And I wish to be inspired in my daily asking for the grace of the Lord to bless me with the talent to pen definitively in glorifying Him.
When I was in 11th grade, at Canyon High, my English teacher told me that I was a good writer…..then she sent me to the Dean’s office for disrupting her class.
Emotionally challenged kid.
???
Just in love with poetry!
????
It was Francis’s first day at the new school. He didn’t hear a single word his mother was saying it was going to be okay as they pulled up beside the curb. He was completely focused on the sea of students that were in front of the old three storied red brick school. In constant motion, wearing their distinctive costumes punctuated by exemplifying behaviour of what they considered to be the identity of their own unique special clique. Jocks, rich kids, greasers, poor kids, hippies, students of the arts, academics & loners…staking out their own territory… milling about, coming & going with a certain constant energy & rhythm…left Francis thinking to himself where did he fit in…in all of this? His mother kissed him on the cheek & told him again it would be okay as he reluctantly got out of the car. The strong smell of tobacco, marijuana & the scent of a freshly squashed peanut butter & banana sandwich…which he had the misfortune of stepping in….wafted against the fresh spring morning air…as he nervously made his way through a large group of noisy kids…to come upon…in front of the entrance to the school…an evil grinning, six foot four, two hundred & fifty pound ogre…with ” Bubba ” scrawled on the front his T shirt! A lump in his throat immediately started to form as the taste of dry mouth began to set in. Stopped dead in his tracks, frozen with fear, digging his fingers in…as far as they would go into his crinkly brown paper bag lunch…with the look of a deer caught in the head lights… Francis had a premonition this may not end well…The ogre loomed with in an inch of Francis’s face & said in a loud booming voice, ” Well! Wha’da’ we got here??? ” ” A new kid??? ” Those excruciating seconds seemed like an eternity…when all of a sudden…a very loud metallic ring began to clang, signaling to the students school was about to begin…the ogre blurted out, ” Holy s…! ” I gotta see the principal! ” As he lumbered away …Francis slowly walked off to the side collapsing to the ground…all five foot five & a hundred twenty pounds of him… & began quickly drawing in deep breaths of relief …repeating to himself, what his mother had said to him earlier that morning,”It’s going to be ok…” ” It’s going to be ok…” It’s going to be ok…”
The smell of cigarette smoke lingers in the boys room. The latest profanities are written in hurried black marker letters on the stall’s metal walls, next to an exacto-knife carving of a capital A inside a circle. The xylophone plays a major arpeggio followed by the student council president chirping about today’s after-school meeting. Bleary red eyes barely try to stay open as bodies slouch in their unforgiving wooden desks. The stale taste of carbonated water and high fructose corn syrup stick to every surface of my teeth.