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Comment by japhyr | Hacker News Reader

Growing up in the 80s, I've known (and sung) this song all my life. But I just saw this flowchart for the first time today:

https://jeannr.tumblr.com/post/165291081/i-made-a-flow-chart...

I believe that's the original source, but it looks cut off. Here's a full version:

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b1/82/dc/b182dcc291495c013c98...

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Did you know there's a long version? (Of the song, not the flowchart, though another reply has that too)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Svz-W5w2bPM

There's a 7-minute version, with two more verses that aren't in the version you always hear on the radio. The one starting at 3:45 in that video is particularly powerful and chilling.

> Every now and then, I know you'll never be the boy you always wanted to be. But every now and then, I know you'll always be the only boy who wanted me the way that I am. Every now and then, I know there's no one in the universe as magical and wondrous as you. Every now and then, I know there's nothing any better. There's nothing that I just wouldn't do.

Well, I never knew this till now:

> With 'Total Eclipse of the Heart', I was trying to come up with a love song and I remembered I actually wrote that to be a vampire love song. Its original title was 'Vampires in Love' because I was working on a musical of Nosferatu, the other great vampire story. If anyone listens to the lyrics, they're really like vampire lines. It's all about the darkness, the power of darkness and love's place in the dark.

https://genius.com/Bonnie-tyler-total-eclipse-of-the-heart-l...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_Eclipse_of_the_Heart

That's actually a really interesting visualization of a professionally structured verse.

Not sure why you were downvoted, it is super interesting. I know nothing of songwriting but it seems like that could be read by a singing performer in similarly to how sheet music is read by an instrument performer. In the graph, there's additional information than just the words that a singer would need to perform the song accurately.

/re-iterate i know almost nothing of music except what i like which i've been informed over and over is incorrect hah.

I've been a musician for nearly 3 decades and this diagram is how really good songwriters think about structuring popular music. They just usually don't write it down like this. It's not only useful for lyrics, but for harmonic progression as well. As for the downvotes, it's probably because most here don't understand songwriting and think the diagram was nothing more than a joke.

I think there should be "An Infinite Literature Contest", where the contestants would submit a formal grammar and the texts in the language would be judged for literary and other qualities.

Steinman was a genius. One of the greatest rock composers of all time and he picked his performers brilliantly.

TIL Bonnie Tyler was the female Meat Loaf.

At the time it was pretty obvious, having just come off Meatloaf’s Bat Out of Hell being played on the radio ten times a day.

I just learned earlier this week that he produced “In The Dark of the Night” from Anastasia!

It doesn't look like the second has been cut off to get the first, because the font is different. It looks like the second was an attempt to extend the first (also, it kills the joke)

Table for what Meatloaf would and wouldn't do:

https://imgur.com/gallery/ZAQXJdY

Timetable of One Week:

https://imgur.com/gallery/rsvhp2z

Reminds me of when she was on Never Mind the Buzzcocks, and they played a "finish the lyrics" game: https://youtu.be/vl7UfjtLzcQ?t=260

Visual representation is your WORST friend: it will make things LOOK simple even if the real thing required the utter mastery to create.

Look at that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATbMw6X3T40

(or that: https://www.facebook.com/reel/1500354675104013)

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