I think there should be more popular songs about failure.
I came across a voice memo I made on my phone a while ago, and realized it goes with some things I’ve been stewing about lately. I love Chan Marshall’s music and late one night I figured out ‘The Greatest’ and did a recording to not forget. (You’re right; I taped my phone to my typewriter to make this video.)
And hey, I had a great little epiphany last month which was very liberating because it came from a shameful artistic confession that lead to repentance:
By cool I mean a few things –
accepted, vague, mysterious, a bit dark, edgy, interesting, in control, confident, current, skeptical, well-dressed, unapologetic, outsider but insider.
I’m not cool in those terms. I still get acne. I am insecure a lot and struggle with anxious thoughts even if I don’t let them stop me that often.
I am very tender-hearted, sentimental, drawn to the older, worn things, I like quiet, I love hand-made-ness, awkward moments, and I don’t like apps. I’m very optimistic, and don’t know how to write up-beat songs. I’m a Jesus-follower (cool points minus a zillion). And folk musicians are rarely cool at all, let’s be honest.
So: the “cool” thing needs to go, because it’s not me.
I have been harsh on myself lately, over-critical of my song-writing in the initial stages — judgmental before I get anywhere, and I have felt very stuck and capped at times. I feel this need to prove myself and it really shuts me down sometimes and causes me to not share things I’ve made, or finish them…… they may not be gold, but what if they could be a clay pot to give someone a drink they needed at that hour? It may not last and it may not be mass distributed, but what if it could be something for someone for a short time?
I keep wondering, as many artists do, where is the place for my work? If there is one, where does it fit?
But we don’t always get to know that; and it may be better if there is no place yet.. because that would mean we are making new space that other people have most likely been waiting to come into.
I know I don’t try as hard to be cool as some people, but it’s in there, and it’s an unproductive comparison mindset that’s tiring. There’s also in there that if I am pursuing the arts I need people to want to buy what I make in order for me to live. It’s so human though — if I’m honest I really want you to think I’m beautiful, collected, able to not worry, that I have a plan and that I’m a really great artist who’s just naturally gifted and doing one right thing after another.
Nope; there’s no guarantee we’ll be called “great” or remembered, but we can be something, and it will be better if we give ourselves permission to be that… otherwise we will never develop creatively or personally.
This isn’t even a cool blog post, I’m basically saying relax! be yourself..
So in the words of someone way cooler than me: “You can try the best you can. The best you can is good enough.”
“Melt me down.”
*Bre