Best Before Dates

As I go through and do my usual maintenance and updating of blogs and music sites, I have two thoughts. The first is: “I hate spam”. The second is: “Oh blimey, I wrote/recorded that HOW long ago?”. It’s sad but true, the internet may forever remain as a testament to, of all things, my learning curve. They say that once something is on the internet, it’s there for all eternity, or at least until some solar flare wipes out technology in a geomagnetic storm of awesome magnitude. I look at the evidence of me on the web and shudder at the thought that if all that is left is the internet, one day, humanity is really going to look like a collective dunce.

Yes, some of it is passable. Some of it might even be described as “good”, if you like listening to a girl playing piano and singing about love, anger, lover and anger, or zombies. But some of it… some of it is like your mother showing your new boyfriend/girlfriend that poem you wrote when you were five. You know you are better now, but that’s not enough to hide the mortifying fact that once you thought rhyming “cat” with “mat” was art.

Some schools of thought suggest not putting anything “unprofessional” or “unpolished” on the web. “Wait until you have something really excellent” they say, “take the time to produce high quality work”. I like that idea. Only, I’m such a perfectionist that if I follow that advice, I’ll never FINISH anything let alone publish it. And besides, criticism is an important bedfellow to creativity. Surely by attempting to only publish work that is close to perfect, you are not only attempting the impossible, but also cheating yourself of the opportunity to develop that oh-so-attractive rhino-like skin?

Songwriting is a learning curve. We’re never done, it’s never “finished”. The best we can do is transitional drafts of songs that feel right and “as complete as they can” at the time. At some point, you have to let the song go. I have decided to practice that a little more this year by returning to my old favourite challenge, FAWM. That’s February Album Writing Month. The 28 (29  this year) day challenge to just churn em out. And never mind how polished they are, it’s a great opportunity to get feedback from other songwriters on the strengths and weaknesses of your song. I want to get back to those roots, get back to that place where songwriting is about the process, not the finished, sterile, polished thing.

I know that a lot of what is up there on the web is more representative of the songwriter I was 2 years ago. I know I have changed a great deal, both stylistically and emotionally, and most of all, technically, as I have begun to learn things to improve my craft. And actually, as I examine it, I’m proud of my journey. So I urge you, today, to be proud of your art, whatever it be, and be proud of your earlier work, because it’s part of the curve that makes you who you are now. And who you are now, will make the artist you are in a year, or 5 years, or 10.

And if you hear something amateur on the web by an artist, something that sounds a little “cat on the mat” ish, be kind to that youngling songwriter. They still have years to go.

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