Page 73 - Song Maps - A New System to Write Your Best Lyrics - Simon Hawkins

But everywhere I see you
How many times do I need to say goodbye
Verse 2
I'm walking past our favorite restaurant
Where we used to go each Valentines Day, stay there till it's late We'd start out drinking rosé
And finish with two reds
Then we had our kids and couldn't stay the pace
Oh coming here again what can I do?
I'm aching to be home again with you
Chorus
Bridge
Now landing here at Dulles
Coming home from NYC
Tho you never usually come here
I really hope you're meeting me
When you see me in arrivals
The girls come running in
How could I ever leave you here again, yeah
Chorus
Words and music by Simon Hawkins
Copyright © 2016 Great British Music (Adm. by Music Services) Lyrics Used By Permission, All Rights Reserved
Some points I'd make:
1. Assigning one location to each Verse helps provide space to introduce "furniture"–not real furniture, but pictures of real objects to help paint pictures of what's happening in our lyric plot.
2. When we get to the Chorus, we've already mentioned the childhood sweetheart, although we are not totally sure if this is the "you" in V1, although it probably is.
3. V2 moves the song on not just in terms of place but also in time–going to restaurants, wine, staying up late, children coming along. The same pain of the Pre-Chorus, remembering the singer's childhood sweetheart, is common to both V1 and V2.
4. The setup to the second Chorus tells us that the spouse is at home.
5. The Bridge takes us to yet another place, Dulles Airport, where the family is reunited and the
song resolves, the mystery is over, and we have a double meaning for the title "How Many Times": multiple people (a wife and two daughters to say goodbye to) and multiple trips this guy reluctantly takes on business.
Variations on Places
You can create new variations of this map in a number of ways. For example, you could use different specific geographical locations in each Verse to create movement. Or you could pan out from a specific