five steps down (see my last post)

I had two verses and a bridge. When I read the bridge I discovered that the meter was very much like that of the verses although there were more syllables. I simply had sort of cut the lines in halves so I hadn't noticed. Somewhere in between I had altered the rhyme pattern of the verses from AABB to ABAB. The re-edited bridge actually also had AABB it now seemed. So I ended up in having three verses, the last one with a different rhyme structure. I could change the other two verses yet again, but then I decided that I'll simply let the third verse be a little like a bridge. I imagine it sung slightly differently, maybe just with a higher pitch. These are the verses:

since your lover left you you've run out of luck
next losing your job nearly finished you off
your friends let you down the day ill fate struck
it looks like you're mired in a personal trough

these days your life does not feel quite right
the few smiles you still get all somehow look fake
your dreams simply won't stand up to daylight
if this is a game you don't know what's at stake

in your dreams you are loved and a success at your job
what you set about doing you'd come out on top
in your dreams you're a hero in the thick of  (the) things*
you can be happy cause your dreams give you wings

"these days your life does not feel quite right" - 9 syllables, 9 or 11 syllables were the original lengths of the lines in the verses.

"in your dreams you are loved and a success at your job" - 13 syllables that can easily match the same meter if you make "in your", "you are", and "and a succ-" two, respectively three short notes instead of one longer note, thus corresponding to "these", "your", and "does". I had put the lines of the former bridge like this:

in your dreams you are loved

and a success at your job

and read the lines of the verses like this (the "|" indicating a little break):

these days your life | does not feel quite right

which could also be written as:

these days your life

does not feel quite right

Each line has two stresses: "dreams" - "loved", "-ess" - "job", "days" - "life", and "not" - "right" - which gives them a very similar rhythm.

****

*without the "the" - "in the thick of THE things" - the meter in the second part of this line would be slightly off. I needed two unstressed syllables between "thick" and "things" to make it flow smoothly. Now it has become quite a tongue twister with four "th" in a row - at least for Germans, so I made the second "the" optional.

Yet another note:

I derived the first lines of the chorus, "three steps up - five steps down", from a German saying "ein Schritt vor, zwei Schritte zurück" (one step forward, two steps back). I don't know if there is an English equivalent. The meaning should be clear, anyway.