Tag Archives: songwriter

Dear Songwriting…

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Dear Songwriting,

It’s not you. It’s me.

Actually, I’m not sure if it’s me. It’s the colors and shapes and light and shadows.

Can’t you see them? And can’t you see that they have me all confused?

Or maybe I’m not confused. Maybe I just need to clear my mind, free the words, and let them come back to me wrapped in tones and textures. Maybe if my eyes start working, the words will be more distinct and more true and less noisy and less wordy. Maybe I just need a blank space to think in. And maybe I am coloring in that space with things I see everyday.

Maybe.

It’s all running together, and melodies pop out of the energy of the images. I can hear them. And it’s all coming from the same place and it all feels the same in my head–the same as when I was younger and I would draw and paint and draw some more. And my mind was filled with pictures and replications of the world and interpretations of life.

Remember where you came from? That’s where you came from. And I’m convinced that in all this gestation you will grow and you will sing stronger than before.

And you are me and this is me and it’s all me. It’s still me. It’s always been me.

And I still love you,

mandy

HT: Messy Mandy, who often holds a mirror to my mind.

Maybe it’s all the emptiness that’s driving me…

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It’s 10:35pm. The house is silent. All I can hear is the whir of the fan and the whistle of the 10:30 train in the distance and the click click click of fingers on keys…

This is the kind of quiet that really makes space for me to think and reflect. To create melodies and lyrics. To emote words like what your reading now. And, lately, I’ve wondered if it’s all this quiet is demanding to be filled by this voracious songwriting.

Drew recently used the phrase: “your songwriting career.” He actually said that to me. I was so stunned by the words that I have no idea what came out after that–except that it sounded a lot like questions of hows and whens and whats.

He said I could even do this when I’m a mom. But, here’s the thing. I don’t know if I’ll be so voracious (what a weird word) then. I wonder if this drive in me is there because I’ve gotta give all that life-giving-ness to something. Maybe the maternal is masking itself in the lyrical right now.

I guess the question is: Is this “songwriter” a forever-part of who I am, or am I just trying to fill the emptiness?

Writer’s Wall

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Not a block. An entire wall. That’s how it feels right now. And I think it’s because there are some extenuating circumstances in life that are pulling at me. So, I don’t have much energy to give to songwriting. And my creativity feels sapped, zapped, tapped out.
Which can be a real suffocating experience, when you remember that creativity and songwriting is the way my soul breathes.

yeah. It feels like my soul it just holding its breath right now… Waiting for a time when it can exhale the stale and take a long uninterrupted inhale.

But life doesn’t work like that. Life doesn’t always provide times for me to breathe. So I’m trying to find a way to create daily moments of enhalation and exhalation. Daily moments where my soul can ooze out something cathartically beautiful.

So this is what you get today. No dance videos. No new songs. No pensivity. Just me.

When you’ve lost the ability to enjoy the things you once enjoyed…

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Don’t forget to have fun.

There are things in life that we do because they’re fun. For me, it’s songwriting. I started songwriting as a pleasure – a recreation – a creative outlet. But now there’s a bit of pressure attached – expectations – goals – publisher stuff – co-writing – whatever. These things sometimes make it more of a “have to” and not a “get to.”  So how do we maintain the element of Play? The element of Fun?

I’m intentionally returning to writing songs for PLAY. It’s the only way I can maintain that sense of fun… Writing songs that are silly or experimental or just – pointless. (These are usually the really interesting ones, btw – ala Hector). Anyway, this maintains a sense of play. Fun. AND it motivates me to take that excitement – that passion – and bring it back to the “have tos” again.

Suddenly, even the scheduled writing times and emails and lyric tweaks become fun again.
What are you doing that has lost it’s fun? Can you find ways to Play again? Return to that original joy. Return to what made you want to do it all day.
And enjoy it – again.

ALL ARTISTS

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Two nights ago I attended my first Songwriters Circle (it’s one thing to post a song here and ask for feedback, it’s another to play it live in front of 5 other amazingly talented people and brace myself for their input). This quote came from one of my dear friends, Cyle, who is a member of the group. I can’t even begin to tell you how true this is of my own life.

I think that all artists, regardless of degree of talent, are a painful, paradoxical combination of certainty and uncertainty, of arrogance and humility, constantly in need of reassurance, and yet with a stubborn streak of faith in their validity, no matter what. ~ Madeleine L’Engle  A Circle of Quiet, The Crosswicks Journal: Book One