Studying My Old Poems -- Halfway There

For as long as I can remember, I have been a musical person. Music has always been my way to connect with the outside world as well as with myself. Music is almost like a tool. If I'm feeling sad, I could listen to "Comes and Goes (In Waves)" by Greg Laswell, and I'll be reminded that sadness, as overwhelming as it can be, is only temporary, and enduring it and many other hardships are simply a part of life. On the days where I feel angry and hurt immensely, "Pittsburgh - No Intro" by The Amity Affliction will, at the very least, act as a catharsis for my rage, a reminder that I'm not being irrational or going crazy, and as a way to vent and release my emotions or the tension in my body that would go towards me kicking a wall, punching a box, et cetera.

On the flip-side, I also use music to energize me. "If There's Nothing to See" by We Came As Romans is highly motivational in its lyrics, orchestration, and performance. This in turn can get me to move faster, work harder, or become inspired in my hobbies "I Wanna Dance With Somebody" by Whitney Houston makes me wanna dance (obviously). It's a song I like to listen to when I'm happy. Therefore, music is also an extension and expression of joy.

Really, I could sit here all day and talk about my favorite songs and why I like the millions of songs I can recall, but really, the point I'm trying to make is that for me, music is an expression of not just emotions and thoughts, but of the self. It is various forms of conscious thought that have all come together for at least one specific purpose.

To me, this has always been absolutely mind-blowing. Writing as a whole has always interested me, and starting sometime in seventh grade,  I started writing my own lyrics.

They are not very good.

But that should probably go without saying. With very little exceptions, nobody is a master of any craft at such a young age. Even now, four years after graduating high school, I'm still not a master. But even at that young, innocent age, I knew that writing was something I loved doing. It was a way for me to express how I felt emotionally and to express my opinions on certain things.

Early junior high me was highly religious, naive, and wracked with guilt over how I was living my life. Back then, I was a member of the Mormon church. We all have our problems and drama, and at that point in my life, I was living in a fashion that anyone would call normal. But me and my religion did not mesh well. Sure, I didn't swear, watch rated R movies, do drugs, or have sex, but because I was a teenager dealing with puberty while simultaneously sleeping during Sunday church service and not reading my scriptures and praying daily, I spent much of my early teenage years carrying this immense weight caused by what I was told were sins. In reality, I was a pretty good kid and I was practically being forced to deal with things that I shouldn't have ever had to give a second thought to.

And hence, this is how "Halfway There" came about.

At the time, there were a few songs I was listening to that either used that phrase as the title, a line in the chorus, or had themes based on it (Such examples that I can remember are Bon Jovi's "Livin' On a Prayer," and Big Time Rush's "Halfway There"). What I wrote is a song about being there for the one you love to help them be good in life so that when you both die, you'll go to Heaven. Things might be tough right now, but just keep pushing through and you'll make it, cause after all, you're already halfway there, so why give up now?

So let's dive in to the actual lyrics. They'll be in bold, and my commentary on each verse will be in normal typeface. I'll preserve as much of the original edit as I can.

Halfway There
by Andrew Ball


In the years of your youth, you were taught to be strong.
Always hold onto Christ, no matter how long.

But the thinking of the world has changed a lot today.
They seem to want to go the other way.

Right away, the problems with this song become apparent. To be clear, there is nothing inherently wrong with being religious or even Mormon (that's a conversation for another day though), but this whole song is filled with a religious tone that wouldn't even work as a hymn or other song of worship which, I should add, wasn't what I was going for when writing this. It's not meant to be a church specific song. It's just a song (of the pop variety, I guess0. Living in a Mormon community within a state founded mostly by Mormons puts people inside of a bubble and hence the product you see before you is going to be the most cheesiest thing you might read all year (There's a chance that I'm just biased since I am a totally different person than I was back then, but that probably only factors into my opinions a little bit).

Anyway, to understand what's going on here in this song, it's important to understand the basics of Mormon doctrine and culture. "In the world, not of the world" is a popular phrase that I heard countless times in church. It basically means that though we live on this planet among many different people and religions, we should not partake of the "worldly" and "immoral" things that come from it. Such things can range from rated R movies, raunchy music, premarital sex, alcohol, and coffee. While none of these things are necessarily "bad," they were definitely bad according to the LDS church. So essentially, we were raised in an "Us versus Them" mentality a lot of the time So in this song, I'm telling the Unnamed Person to not give in to the world. Don't watch that R rated movie. Don't skip prayer. Don't fall away from the church and keep pushing through, even if the world laughs and mocks at you for doing it (which they probably were and still are, but not for the reasons the church says they do). 

They beat on you,

They crash on through.
They tell you just to go with the flow,

But please, don't fall away and never let go.

Here we come to what I would consider a bridge or pre-chorus. So far, things look OK. There aren't any glaring grammar mistakes, and up until now, the rhythm made by the syllables has been all right with the exception of the last couplet. The rhyme scheme is also very classic and not too stale or boring. Again, it's all right.  

We're halfway there, now don't be scared,

Cause I'll be there to catch you when you fall.

We'll help each other to stand above all.

Don't give up now cause,

We're halfway there.

This is the chorus. I was surprised to find that I actually liked what I wrote here. I rhyme "there, scared, and there," which kinda sounds weird, but at least "there" and "there" have a buffer word in between them. The word choice sound just a tad awkward to me, but not bad.

So to be clear, the message now is that I'll be there for Unnamed Person when they need it, so they shouldn't be afraid of the future.

The prize is so close; it's within our grasp.

But believe you will never last.

I promise you that your suffering is worth much.
Let's do this together so the pain is isn't a bunch.

I don't think the semicolon was used appropriately, but what can I say? I'm ambitious! Also, I'm pretty sure I meant to say "But you believe"

Now let's talk about the last couplet. It's terrible. I showed this to a friend of mine and he agreed with me that it is utter crap. "worth much" and "a bunch" are just so awkward, cheesy, and amateur.

So basically, right on par for a lot of my early writings. But again, I was like 12 or 13, so that's fine. Even now, rhymes like these will pop into my head and I always avoid using them.

We're halfway there, now don't be scared,

Cause I'll be there to catch you when you fall.

We'll help each other to stand above all.

Don't give up now cause,

We're halfway there.

I can still here a bit of the little tune I came up with in my head for the chorus.

I'll stay with you if you stay with me.
I need your, so promise me please,

To stay as true as I will to you,
Because if you don't I will go blue.

To be honest, if it wasn't obvious before, Unnamed Person is actually Unnamed Female. Mix puberty, hormones, and the need for an "eternal companion," and here you go, a kid like me talking about marrying someone when he's only had small, fleeting crushes so far. Again, we have a typo ("your" was probably supposed to be "you"). We also have another crappy and forced rhyme with "you" and "blue." You may also notice that I rhyme "you" a lot here. That's also a bad habit I try to avoid.

I love you and want to be with you,

In case you never knew.
So let's both get to heaven.
Does that sound like a plan to you?

Here is another bridge where someone could put a breakdown. It's basically the turning point of the song where things start to look a little hopeful. Again, stale rhymes abound, as well as a sudden rhyme scheme change. Instead of AABB, what we have here is AABA.

We're halfway there, now don't be scared, cause I'll be there to catch you when you fall.

We'll help each other to stand above all.

Don't give up now cause,

We're halfway there.

We're halfway there.

I promise you that we're halfway there.

Halfway there,
Halfway there.
Halfway there.

And that concludes the song. It could definitely be better, but for a person as young as I was, I felt proud of it, and it was the beginning of my growth as a songwriter, so for that reason, I'm proud of it. Maybe someday, when I have a spark of inspiration, I'll remake it and actually put it to song.