When I go back and listen to my voice memos, I'll hear a lot of snippets os songs on an acoustic guitar. And then there will be some strange bird songs from Australia, and they'll both feel like me. I recorded birds, but made a conscious decision to record that. I invent that. The act of doing that seems as creative to me as the act of playing something on a guitar. It confirms my search for beauty and inspiration.
2. (p. 59) You have to stop thinking that you're going to make something great, or something that might make you famous. You have to stop thinking about anything other than what happened when you were a little kid, and you laid on the floor, and you drew." You loved it because you made it yourself and the drawing got hung up on the fridge regardless of how good it was, because your mom loves you and everybody loves you.
Or maybe your mom didn't like your drawing and told you so. People are going to judge you at some point, and you're definitely going to judge yourself. But it's still so worth it -- putting the crayon in your hand, putting the pen in your hand, putting the guitar in your hand. There's so much value to that, and it's so much more valuable than any criticism that's going to come your way.
That's one of the problems with humans -- that we can be talked out of loving something. That we can be talked out of loving something that we do, and we can be talked out of loving ourselves. Easily, unfortunately. Sometimes parents, because they're afraid the world is going to do it, would rather prepare their children in their own way for how much the world doesn't care, doesn't love them.
102 Tweedy wrote "Company in My Back" "from the viewpoint of an insect at a picnic. That's the point of view that was in my mind, at least, but what it ended up being is far from impersonal. In fact, I find it to be heartbreakingly revealing when I read it or sing it today. I attack with my love, pure bug beauty/I curl my lips and crawl up to you/ And your afternoon/ And I've been puking."
I think it's revealing because without the emotional cover of not being myself as the narrator of the song, I don't think it would have been secure enough to identify myself as something beautiful yet unwelcome. Like a bug at a picnic. An interloper. Facing danger bigger than anything I could ever imagine, and yet feeling gentle and deeply surrendered to the largeness of the world and its mysteries. Writing from a bug's place in the wolrd allowed me to be honest, in other words. About things that were too painful to contemplate fully at the time.
116 I have a favorite game I play to not just combat procrastination but also challenge the feeling that I should work only when I know it's going to be "good." This exercise helps keep my definition of what a song is, or can be, open and forgiving enough to allow pleasant anomolies to flourish.
It's a simple game. Basically, the whole gist is to set a timer for any amount of time you can spare (I think five to ten minutes is perfect) and tell yourself that whatever comes to you in that amount of time is a song. I even like to record what I come up with into my phone at the end of the time limit to really finalize the feeling that I met the challenge and stuck to the rules.
136 Tells story of Inuit carvers. The melody of the mumble track is like the stone or ivory. "I focus on just the sounds at first, carving toward words, and then words with meaning, until an image appears and finally I can add clear, precise language that underlines and reveals a "moose" or an "otter" -- which, in my case, of course, is almost inveriably a song about "death."
That's what I'm talking about when I'm in my most ideal state of creativity: I'm as excited about seeing what happens next as if I were watching myslef do it. Again, I'm going to repeat how this is the part I think I can encouarge and teach. The processes I'm pushing can be used over and over.... The creative state is the most important part. None of it means anything if you're not excited by the discovery of what you're making.
156 I don't like every song i write, but I like that I wrote it. I know that for every five or so songs I write, I'm going to have one that means a lot to me, and it wouldn't have come to me if I hand't written the other four songs. If I hadn't practiced getting to that place. A place that's as close to coloring on the floor as Ican get.
157 Here's my strong suggestion: Play your song at least once for at least one person other than yourself to feel the intimacy and vulnerability of singing your song out loud. With someone listening -- preferably someone you love.
I do think that what makes a song a song is how it feels when it's sung. You might give up halfway through. You might change the words as you're singing them the way you would when you anticipate someone you're speaking to isn't quite following. Because every song should make some effort to connect. Songs are pleas. It's all about reaching out and pulling in... or pushing out and looking in -- in equal and unequal amounts. To whatever degree you need that connection in your life, you've at least taken the time and made the effort to create a song. I would love for you to have the full weidght of this one simple truth rest on your shoulders gently for long enough to understand what it is you've done.
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