Once a Week bittersweet...
You were so...damn...close....to achieving brilliance. When this song first started out I thought you were the fucking man. The music was great but what really sold me were the lyrics. They were the kind that you come across in a Bob Dylan or Johnny Cash song...until the second verse where you (ehem your friend) acted like a total wuss by not challenging yourself to equal the genius of the first verse. For example:
"Well I see that I hurt you baby / That ain't news to me / So I'll make this promise to love you babe / To love you for eternity"
Why in the world should anyone care about this situation? If you put it like that, then no one will. When I listen to those words, it sounds like a dead horse getting beat with a stick. It's like your friend ran out of ideas and decided to put the most cliche' he could think of. I mean what happened to this?:
"But it ain't just my habits or my deadly addictions / That keep on leading me down / This one way street / But the stop signs on either side keep me going / But I swear that you're all I have / Except this one day a week"
Absolutely fantastic! These are the kind of lyrics that draw a listener into the story of a song. It makes them interested in hearing about a person torn between the love of their life and alcohol addiction. It's fresh and original.
Keep working ask your friend to dig deeper!