Stevie Nicks Saved My Life Tonight

I’m a songwriter. That’s not what I do for a living. That’s who I am.

I honest to God sometimes wish I wasn’t, because I care so much about it.

Of all the things I do, songwriting is probably the second truest I can be to myself when I’m doing something, piano teaching being the first. And while, in my piano teaching, I can be received, see the fruits of my labor, make some money, in songwriting I can only put the energy out into the universe.

Sometimes I give a song as a gift and that’s gratifying. Usually it’s well received. But then the song lives on long after the gift-giving is over, and it overstays its welcome in my world like a bad guest. I gave it away, but I’m the one who ends up keeping it.

Of course my daughter loves my songs, and for that I am eternally grateful. She is my number one fan and the reason I still enjoy it. I have friends too who let me know they are listening, who collaborate with me, who reassure me that what I’ve done is good.

The reality is that probably a million songwriters are alive today, and that at least ten thousand of them are really good. The reality is that even the famous ones are lucky if people pay attention to one of their songs, and even the ones with catalogues of thirty hits will be forgotten in fifty years. This is life and art.

I work at a church as an organist, and the question of what God doesn’t want for you came up, this question of not getting what you think you want. Whether you believe in the God part, the question of whether you should be what you want to be, or what you think you should be, or what people want you to be, often ends up to be irrelevant in the face of who you end up being. That leaves you with the question of whether you should ever have tried for what you think you want, what you think you are.

Why do I have the particular makeup of a good songwriter? Why have I nurtured it, written hundreds of songs, put them into the world, when it would all largely be futile? I know some of the answers, and I’ve learned to be grateful for the life I’ve gotten to lead rather than the one I might have fallen into.

Springsteen talks in his autobiography about the time where he’s just about to go insanely big. He talks about that moment some people get when they have the opportunity to be their complete selves as big as they can possibly be and it’s received and rewarded, what a special and also harrowing thing that is.

I can’t say that’s ever happened to me, and I’m not sure I’d want it if it did.

Nevertheless, the question keeps coming back as I get better and better at this largely useless skill. What am I exactly? What should I be doing with my skill?

And then I saw this video, and all my questions were answered.

https://www.dailymotion.com/playlist/x72r74