What's Your Opinion?

The business of songwriting is based on opinions. The life of a song can end as soon as one of these people deems the music not good enough to listen to:


Songwriter
Publisher
Song plugger
Artist's manager
Artist
Artist's label head
Label promotional team
Radio DJ
Distributor
Retailer
Listener

The most significant decisions happen in the creative stage. As a songwriter, if I want to get my music all the way through the process to the listener, I should probably take into account the opinions of everyone along the way. Sounds logical, right? But the more people you try to appease, the less focused and pure the song becomes. You can write a song that plays by all the rules, but lacks uniqueness. When you create art, it is impossible to please everyone.

In the end, we are all better off staying true to our own understanding of what a great song is. If we do that, in the end we can at least believe in the art we create.

Keep writing,

Ben

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Nurturing the Creative Soul

Creativity is organic. It needs to be tended to as if it were the most delicate flower in the bouquet. And here's proof that God invented Tie-Dye:

"Passion Flower" by Deepa Photography. Used with permission.

One of the important things I took from walking through The Artist's Way book (see "Reading" link above) was the fact that our creativity is a living thing. And that living thing deserves and needs to be taken care of. Protected, not neglected.

I tried my hand at gardening last Spring, and pretty quickly realized that tending to so many plants is quite a commitment. We only had two 4x4 raised garden beds, so I figured I'd better pack in the plants to get the highest yield. I didn't honor the fact that each plant actually needs its own significant space in order to receive its nutrients from the ground. Also, I didn't exactly give the necessary time to pulling weeds, pruning the plants, and watering that I should have. Some plants did fairly well, but the overall result of the garden was a tangled mess of half-grown vegetables.

Toward the end of this past year, I felt the same thing that the garden bed must have felt in August. With the good intention of being as productive as possible, I packed my schedule full and put my creative well-being in the passenger seat. My hope is that the quality of the songs didn't suffer, though that usually is the direct result.

One of the great things as we write more songs is that we learn how to read ourselves better. I know what it feels like to be creatively drained, and I know how pointless it is to try and push myself to write just one more song. Sometimes the best thing I can do for myself is stop. When we give ourselves the space to breath, freedom again shows up, along with the joy of creating.

Keep writing (or take a break),

Ben

Five Times

I recently wrote with a guy who had written a song that was recorded by one of the most successful female country artists of our time. We met at his place where he had a room dedicated to writing and recording. In addition to some family photos, I noticed a plaque hanging on one wall, congratulating him on the sales of over 5,000,000 records. Our conversation went something like this:

Me: “What an accomplishment!”
Him: “Yeah, my wife encouraged me to put it up, but I think it needs to come down.”
Me: “But why wouldn’t you want to display that?”
Him: “Because it just reminds me that I haven’t done it since.”

You see, he had written that song about five years before the day we got together to write. It made me sad that he must come into that room five days a week to create, but immediately feel the pressure not to fail again.

Photo by rafaelmarquez. Used with permission.

I realized that it is my human tendency to always be looking forward to the next thing. I naturally am always focused on reaching the next mountain peak. But I believe the key to enjoying a career as a songwriter is to write songs because you enjoy writing songs, and for no other reason. Everything else is icing on the cake, including a big hit or a #1 song.

When I think about looking back at the end of my career, do I want to remember being happy five times (when I made it to the mountain peaks)? Or do I want to remember being happy five times a week?


Keep writing,

Ben