Kind of doing this on the fly, since I have some other things going, but here's what I did. I thought it would be a good idea to show them leaving each other then getting back home. Kept a lot of what you did, just sort of sped up the action to get it in a closer to 3:30 framework. Am sending the guitar vocal to you and let you figure out how to post if you want. Keep or sweep.                          

OUR DANCE

                                        CARROLL KIPKIN

You grab your toothbrush, you slide aside

I grab the toothpaste, start brushing mine

A daily choreography each morning routine

All these years together, have made us a team

            I know when to dip, you know when to turn

            A beautiful waltz, that I’ve been happy to learn

                                    Chorus

            I KNOW YOU, YOU KNOW ME

            NOTHINGS BY CHANCE

            WE’VE GOT A LONG LIFE TOGETHER

            SINCE WE BOTH LEARNED OUR DANCE

You do your makeup, I make the bed

You put your dress on, you know I like red

Both head out to work, traffic slows down our drives
Do the too busy tango, from 8 thirty till five
            We’ll be back together, at the end of the day

            Continue our duet, over a little Chardonnet

                                    Chorus

                                    Bridge
When we call it a day, I know that’s my cue

We’ll be face to face, me holding you

I like it .no problem with. The changes.

Good glad you like it. Let me know when/if you get the music. Have had a lot of net problems lately. WE had a brief black out a couple days ago, and everything has gone a little weird. Let me know if you got it.

Posted by: ckiphen

• Don't worry about trying to please me. Do what you think the listeners want to hear. I'm not a musician so i don't try to control that side of it. 

If I knew that I wouldn't be around here. I only do my best guess. I think writers, particularly artists, have to do what is in their "wheelhouse" and be true to themselves. I put this in the framework of some of the current country singers like Luke Bryan, Luke Combs, Eric Church. Kind of a mid tempo male "sexy" song. It's three minutes and eight seconds long. About the right time. On what I sent you is always just a template, or first draft. It has some slight differences through the song which I do for a reason. I often go back and re-listen and like to give myself options on melodies, chords, etc. So it's just a general idea. 

What I do on lyrics is try to tighten them up based upon certain styles that are out there and what sings easily in my voiceings. Hard to get songs with more than two verses and a bridge even heard anymore, well it's hard to get ANY SONG heard anymore, but I  do like to get everything as tight as I can.

So there you go. You ask for it and I give it a shot. Hope you like it.

MAB

Either way i appreciate you taking time to work on it. Thank you !

Sho nuff. Glad I had the time.

Carroll, I don't know if you got the work tape yesterday, if not, let me know and I'll re-send it. I hope you like it, if not that's fine, I gave it a shot.I wanted to draw your attention to one thing that I think might be of help to you.

You will often hear a phrase from teachers, critiques, publishers, etc. and that is "SAY THE SAME THING, YET SAY IT DIFFERENTLY." I say this quite a bit. In your song, I did that. 

MOST IMPORTANT THOUGHT

When you are writing your song and decide on THE MOST IMPORTANT THOUGHT, or the primary reason for the song, that is the HOOK. You want to write to that. In much of your song, you did that, but there were a few places you OVERUSED IT. That weakens the overall effect of your hook.

In this case, it was the word, "DANCE." 

That is the overall purpose for the song, the "DANCE OF LIFE." It is what you are talking about in this relationship, that these two people "dance throughout life", in the morning, brushing teeth, getting ready, dressed, etc. and you wanted to continue that throughout their day, until they wind down at night. This is very relatable in that we all do that every day. Shoving ten thousand things into a day. But we can lose sight of what is important, so we have to keep our "dance" with each other the focus.

In your version, you used the word "DANCE" several times. In the verses and the chorus as well as the hook. I felt this needed to be said in different ways throughout the song. So I used words and phrases that were the same as "dance" but said it in different ways:

"Daily choreography"
"Beautiful Waltz"
"Too Busy Tango"
"Duet"

These are all terms that are used in conjunction with the word "Dance", and yet leaves the actual word "DANCE" for the main hook of the song. On the recording, you'll find I actually DOUBLED the chorus and just repeated it. I did that to drive the point home a little more and the song is much shorter now with the way I phrased everything and the tempo of the song, in addition to taking out your third verse and making that into a bridge. I added a few lines that I felt kept your initial thought, but changed the song a bit. In today's marketplace, it is harder and harder to keep listeners attention, Hell, if you can get them to put their cell phone DOWN for three minutes, you have done an earth shattering event, so things done in other eras, having the pre-chorus be the same, repeating the hook throughout the song, are not done as much because it just gives people another reason to get bored by the song. Chalk it up to our information driven world, we have to have new information added all the time in a song yet giving a "central place to come back to" which is the chorus.

Hope it all makes sense and thanks for letting me take a swing at it. Hope you like it. Keep writing and I'm always around if you should need me.

MAB

Yes thanks i got it and sent a couple responses. Guess they didn't go thru. Yes i like what you did and i see your point. I figured i was overusing it. The song sounds like something you'd hear in todays market. Nice upbeat tempo. Feel free to use it as an example in your classes or pass it along to someone you think it might benefit. I only know one person i could send it to who might be able to use it. Let me know if you have further use for it or not. If not I'll send it to Graham Gould in Australia. Either way thanks for the lesson. I appreciate it. I'll leave it to your descretion whether to post it or not. Thanks!

Carroll 

Carroll,
Thanks, glad you like it. I think it is pretty cool. You are more than welcome to post it or whatever you would like. I don't post a lot of songs because there is usually someone else attached to it and they might have their own needs for the song, so I don't want to circumvent that. Being that it is your song, you are welcome to do whatever you would like.

That is a great idea to send it to the Australian, as they are a bit more open to outside material than we are here. Other countries are good avenues for songs these days, so by all means, send anything you would like. I hope I can get a good guitar vocal on the song, but I don't have a current session coming up. I usually have to have a few before I go in and do them.

I have a little bizarre problem when it comes to the "pitching" of songs, in that while I know a lot of artists, the vast majority (actually all of them) are coming to me to learn songwriting, not get songs. I'm actually teaching them the process of writing, so they are really not interested in any of the songs they are not writers on. So I really don't even pitch my own songs to them. In fact, they usually don't even hear me perform or hear any of my songs, unless we book a show together to give them performance credibility, so I really don't even promote myself. I'm probably the worst self promoter you would ever meet.

On the outside chance, I sometimes do Facebook or YOU TUBE teaching videos, where I do that, of course, with me doing a song like this, I would get the inevitable "YOU TOLD ME NOT TO WRITE SONGS WITH THE WORD "DANCE" AND HERE YOU ARE DOING ONE ABOUT DANCING!!!!" Etc. I kind of get in my own trouble by doing things I tell others not to do. LOL!

Fortunately, since I always co-write, there is always someone else to blame. So I can always say "THIS GUY ON A WEB SITE BLACKMAILED ME INTO DOING IT!! I SWEAR!!!! HE WAS GOING TO POST PICTURES OF ME AND KATE UPTON IN  SOME COMPROMISING SCENARIOS!!!! HE MADE ME DO IT!!! CARROLL MADE ME DO IT!!!!

Of course, here, we can always blame Jenny and Gavin. Just say they made us do it and we had no choice! LOL!
MAB

It'd be extremely nice of you if you get a chance to do a better vocal and guitar. That way I'll at least have a better copy for my own enjoyment. I'll post it here and run it by Graham in Australia. Once again appreciate you taking the time to help out on this and thanks for the lesson. 

You're more than welcome. I see you on a lot of sites, and always wanted to make sure I can offer a few insights when I can. It really helps when people like yourself stay involved, so glad I could do something that you liked. I will get a decent work tape on it ASAP. I've got about three others and one I just wrote a couple hours ago with my current tour folks, and I'll be putting some things together soon for everyone. 

MAB

Appreciate it!