Greetings and salutations, everyone. One of my childhood/lifelong friends and I were talking last week and he was mentioning how the “Dad Metal” song I wrote reminded him of some Goth Metal he listens to; specifically the song “Let You Down” by Theater of Tragedy. This sparked the idea for this week’s post about writing a Goth Metal song. Let’s give the track I wrote a listen and I’ll tell you how I made it below.
Listen here:
How did I write this song?
The fun thing – among countless others – about studying music and being such a music fanatic is being able to listen to a song or type of music and fairly quickly recreate it in your own way with your own spin while both learning about a different genre of music and paying respect to it through your creation. I took the above song (Let You Down by Theater of Tragedy) that my friend sent me and I pieced out the form for it. The form for that song – and “Undying Hell” – is as follows:
- Intro
- Chorus (riff)
- Verse
- Chorus
- Verse
- Chorus
- Intro as the outro
With that, I only actually had to write two parts to construct the material for this song. I wrote the chorus to start out. Then I used the melody I created as the intro/outro melody and I made a slight variation on the chord progression for the verses. Again and as usual, constructing/choosing chord progressions allowed me to write melodies that I used as the main themes for the song. Knowing how to construct and identify chord progressions is an invaluable tool in creating both songs and frames from which you can improvise and create melodies for songs.
Writing the music itself, for me, was the easy part. The next step was writing lyrics. I read a few different sets of lyrics by Theater of Tragedy as well as several other bands that were labeled as Goth Metal. After this, I decided to make my topic more vampiric in nature and style. After I wrote and recorded everything my lovely partner heard it and said, “Did you write that for Halloween?” to which I responded: “Oh yeah! Halloween! Sure!”
Here are the lyrics:
Lyrics
Verse
The sun is out, so I begin
Sleeping away, this day of sin
Disturb my peace, an act of war
Deep in the night, your blood will pour
Bequeath your flesh, my one desire
The fluid beneath, all I require
Your torment now, for eternity
You lived before, now you die for me
Chorus
We are left alone
With our undying throne
Blood feeds the citadel
In our undying hell
Verse
The creeping death, in all of me
It feeds my fire, like kerosene
My endless quest, to feed on you
One constant goal, to bring your doom
The burning sky, I left behind
The moon above, gives peace of mind
My silence burns, a bitter scream
My strength returns, I reign supreme
Deciding what voice/vocal style to deliver these lyrics in took me a fair chunk of time. As you can hear, I ended up on a pseudo Type-O Negative vibe mixed with Dracula while trying to make sure I made the delivery serious enough to respect the genre and give a good example of what you can do with your own vocals.
What took me the longest was actually making the effect on the intro/outro. That took me longer to work out than it took me to write the entirety of the song. I ended up spending a fair amount of time with my headphones on working out a filter that felt like it would be used in a Goth Metal song. The nice thing about working out your own effects is that you both get experience in tampering with effects and you can use that knowledge – and saved preset that you create from your work – for other songs and recordings of your own.
What instruments/plugins did I use?
Here’s a list of all of the plugins and instruments I used to write and record this song:
- Guitar 1 – double tracked with one track panned 1/4 to the left and the other 1/4 to the right
- Guitar 2 – just double tracked and sent down the middle (no pan)
- Bass
- Drums
- Vocals – about 20 vocal tracks with various panning and doubling throughout
- Plugins used (Logic Pro plugins that I’ve tampered with and edited with effects etc.):
- Intro: Vintage Pluck
- Chorus: The Final Lead
- Verse 1: Pop Organ
- Verse 2: Pop Organ and Full Strings
- Outro: The Final Lead
There should be enough information here to give you a good head start on writing a Goth Metal song of your own. I hope this has been a fun and informative experience in both listening to and learning how to make your own Goth Metal song. If you’re interested in learning more specifics about writing, recording, performing, practicing, or anything music related, then please feel free to contact me to book a lesson or a package of lessons today to enhance your musical knowledge and experience. You can find a list of my prices and services by clicking here.
Thank you for your time and I hope you have a wonderful week full of learning, progress, and, at the very least, finding some enjoyment in your life. It’s too easy to get wrapped up in this, that, or the other thing and forget that we do what we do because it’s either something we enjoy or is something we must do to get to the things we enjoy. If you look at it that way, we’re always aiming towards finding enjoyment in one form or another.
All the best to you and yours,
– Matt
PS: If you’re interested in listening to all of the music I’ve written for these blogs, I’m uploading monthly “albums” of what I write about to all major streaming platforms. They can be easily found by heading to my linktree by clicking this text.