Smiling (Five Smiling Faces)
A songwriting exercise, SSG Y10W43. Choose one adjective to be the song title. The idea is to make the title the hook. I didn't quite succeed. I used 2 adjectives and a noun.
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Story behind the song
It's about a family portrait in which everyone is smiling. The family is dysfunctional and the smiles are just for the picture. At the time the singer is looking at the picture, it's not even a family anymore.
Lyrics
chorus:
Five smiling faces suspended in time,
Captured in a silver frame,
Displayed on my desk,
Dressed in our Sunday best.
Mom and Dad not speaking.
Neither one taking the blame.
verse:
Dad died the next year
From cigarettes and beer.
I cried when he went
Over what might have been.
verse:
Carla left home,
Married in another time zone.
Until parted by death.
Last year she took her last breath.
chorus
verse:
Jeff doesn't call me
Since his bankruptcy.
Somehow I'm guilty
For lending him money.
verse:
Mom's still around,
Looking much older now.
She watches TV and sleeps,
Smiling at the picture she keeps.
chorus
verse:
I'm in that photo,
Taken forty years ago,
Of five smiling faces
In which no one embraces.
