Writing songs

Well, I'm trying something new here. I know I've gone on about writing songs, and I've gone on about the creative process, about self consciouness, about doing embarrassing stuff and getting egg on your face, about The Artists Way, being prolific and so on, as well as finding my own inner child and letting him play freely, but still I've been hounded by the need to be clever and do something brilliant, rather than simply enjoy the process of learning without being destructively critical. And the idea of writing a song is, to me, as painfully embarrassing as writing a poem. But it has to be done, if I'm to be a real artist and grow.

So here's a song/poem I wrote about being 50. I just have to start somewhere with writing these kinds of words down. And this is it.

Fifty, yes I'm fifty
I don't believe it's true
Drinking down my root beer
And I'm feeling pretty blue

Attitude is everything
I realise once again
Will I be my biggest enemy
Of at last my biggest friend

Fifty, yes I'm fifty
More than halfway through the game
Feeling like a failure, though
It's such a bleeding shame

But attitude is everything
Living is an art
Not so competition
But something from the heart

Fifty, yes I'm fifty
And Clapton sings his song
Nobody loves you when you're down and out
In that, I know he's wrong

But attitude is everything
And love is all around
An attitude that's perfect
Is something that I've found.


I wrote that on my birthday, sitting in a restaurant in Greune, Texas. It's wanky, isn't it? See, on one level a part of me likes it, obviously, because a part of me wrote it, and was trying to say something by writing it. But other parts of me fucking loathe it as a piece of shit. Other parts of me want me to write something sophisticated and clever and brilliant. And that's a key to the problem: parts of me want me to write something, but plainly there's not a part of me that (as yet) actually wants or needs to write something that the other parts really think is good. These old parts of me still aren't really concerned with me writing something from my heart, or that's really true and good and sharp. They want me to write something that will impress others, and make me money.

Is it any wonder that I've not been doing that?

Until I find a voice that writes songs, I'm destined to be blocked as a song writer.

So, I have to write crap songs, just to break through the blocks.

And this is one of the first. Whether or not it's a crap bunch of lyrics (or poem, whatever it is) is irrelevant. It came out of me and on to the page. And that's what's important.

Geddit?