Lyrics - Should we own this mistake? How bad is it?

It's not that bad to me. Lots of songs have strange grammar or wording in them. I can still tell that you're referring to something ending. The nice thing with songwriting is that you have room to mess around with lyrical structure, it's not the same as typical writing. 

I don't think it's a big deal! Personally, I find it cute and charming when non-English music artists make minor English mistakes in their lyrics, and it's not like people won't understand what you mean.

*Tell me why - ain't nothing but a heartache* *Tell me why - ain't nothing but a mistake* *Tell me why I never wanna hear you say, "I want it that way"* This was a chart-topping song in 25 countries. I think you guys will be OK.

personally this would bother me. It’s not the end of the world or anything but lyrics are a big deal to me as a music lover and it does sound awkward. I haven’t heard the song though so I really have no idea if it sounds natural phonetically, but in my opinion I would imagine “coming to an end” would sound much better. Are you appealing to an english speaking audience and the entire songs in english or do you guys mix languages? or is the song mostly targeted to your local country? I think the intended audience plays an important role too

You don't have to be gramatically correct in writing song lyrics, in fact, switching things up a bit can be a method of writing them to make the lyric stand out more or better fit the feeling without the restraints of grammatical rules. If it works better in the song, go with it. In this case, it think "going to an end" makes it a bit more interesting. It makes it sound like it's heading for disaster rather than reaching a sad conclusion.

It sounds wonky in a sentence. But: poets and writers intentionally fuck with grammar all the time, so this in a song would likely go unnoticed. Usually when they do that, it's by intention, but sometimes shit just happens.

Max Martin has written some of the biggest hits in the English-speaking world. He is non-native (from Sweden) and some of his earliest work is nearly total gibberish. His recent songs still have a lot of strange grammar. Nobody seems to mind, so I think you're ok.

It just sounds like an artistic choice. If I didn't know I'd probably be thinking something like "hmmm it's going to an end instead of coming to an end....so that symbolizes pushing something away instead of internalizing it" or something like that.

Lyrics often have poetic structures, and poetry has an enormous amount of freedom to break basic rules in order to convey meaning. "Going to an end" just makes it sound like the end is intentional, instead of "coming to an end" which doesn't really say why things are ending.

It's fine, people will know what it means. I recommend having the lyrics reflect what is actually sung though so as not to confuse people. I've heard that the Britney Spears song "Hit Me Baby One More Time" was written by someone whose first language wasn't English. The title implies she is asking someone to beat her, but "hit me" was used instead of "hit me up" which means to contact or call. The song still became a hit.

I'd notice, but it's not like I'd trash talk your band or this particular song just for that.   

It sounds a little weird, but if the song is good, minor English mistakes just add charm.

Taylor Swift sang Starbucks lovers in a huge pop hit. Honestly a lot of big artists play with expressions and language intentionally, this will not turn anyone off if the rest of the song is good enough.

It's noticeable but not catastrophic; most listeners likely won't care, especially with scream vocals.

Could be the next Take On Me.

Not a big issue. If you REALLY wanted to you could try to pass it off as “going to end”

Actually, to me , it sounds like a clever turn of phrase. Keep it.

It's not bad at all. In fact, if I had heard this song without having seen this post first, I would have assumed that "going" had been deliberately chosen in this instance. For example, "going to an end" instead of "coming to an end" could be you emphasising that what you're discussing (a relationship for example) is something which is ending without you being responsible for it; a sort of mishmash of "going away" and "coming to an end", for example, which is totally fine in lyrics. If we can put the possible dirty meanings of the following aside for a second (because damn am I itching to make these jokes, so if I can't, nobody can) "coming" is something which inherently includes you, since it implies (without any further context mentioning anyone else anyway, like is the case here) that whatever you're describing is either heading to your location, or going along with you to another location. "Going", however, is something that can happen without you or your location being relevant at all, so saying (using the relationship example) "going to an end" can imply can the relationship ended without your fault or input. In short, to me, it doesn't read anything like an error, but rather like something poetic and consciously chosen.

“Going to an end” isn’t wrong, grammatically speaking. It’s a fine, grammatical thing to say. “Coming to an end” is a set phrase, though, so much more common. Either works, really. They even mean the same thing, essentially, just from different perspectives.

If the melody is good the lyrics don't even need to make sense. There's a term called "poetic license". This is from chatgpt: "Poetic license is the freedom that poets and other writers take to deviate from standard rules of language, grammar, or factual accuracy in order to achieve a desired artistic effect. It allows for creative expression that may bend or break conventional rules to enhance rhythm, rhyme, imagery, or meaning.".

it's a song, not an English test, write and sing what makes sense to you

Maroon 5 released a song that went "You say I'm a kid, my ego is big I don't give a shit" and tried to pronounce it in a way that made "kid" "big" and "shit" sound like they rhyme. Releasing your song as-is will be fine, and write the lyrics as "going to an end" since that's what you actually sang. There's tons of songs that use unusual or "incorrect" grammar in order to have the rhyme scheme or number of syllables match. And "going to an end" has a slightly different meaning to me, meaning it's not ending RIGHT now but it is headed unstoppably that way.

I just want to thank everyone that answered this post. I was really worried about this and somehow it also made to kinda hate a song that I put a lot of work and we as band love it. Now it is even more special to me. Thank you guys.

Since you mention screamed vocals, I'm wondering if this is heavy metal music? If so, I sincerely doubt anyone would care assuming they notice. The history of English mistakes in non-native metal lyrics is a long and storied one. Heck, depending on the subgenre, it may even be part of the charm (looking at you, Scandinavian power metal bands).

I would not notice anything this small, just assume it was an artistic choice. I've heard worse from native speakers when it comes to songs.

What you wrote could work depending on how it’s said, like any other phrase. If it’s said too fast, it might sound off. Nobody could give you an answer to your question without listening to it, so don’t be too gloomy as it’s probably an absolute banger!