Yes, I propose to write and record one song a day for a week.
About ten years ago I finally found my medium as an artist. I am a songwriter. Thoughts of fame and fortune aside, I write for the love of it. I enjoy the whole process, start to finish. Sometimes that writing involves plumbing the depths of my soul. The songs that come out of those experiences are cathartic and, at least in the past, have proved crucial to my happiness, or even survival. I write so that I can go on, at times.
I also write to dream.
Well, I haven’t done very much writing lately. At my peak I was writing close to a song a week. That dwindled to one a month. Since January I’ve completed only one song this year.
My dear friend, and sometimes collaborator, died this year of cancer. Jan Jablecki. She was also my benefactor, my fairy godmother, and my muse. A fellow musician, she once told me she would sing with me anytime, anywhere. She was a huge supporter of my music. She took it seriously. And she told me numerous times she thought I was a gifted song-writer. In short, she saw me for whom I was–or at least for whom I wanted to be. For whom I saw myself.
When Jan was dying, I wrote her an email acknowledging and thanking her for being so many things for me. And I promised that I would continue taking my songwriting seriously, no matter what. I found out the next day she had died. She didn’t read the email. That doesn’t bother me especially. I doubt she questioned my love or appreciation. She did not need to be reassured on either of those points. She was with her family and dearest friends, which was for the best. It’s up to me to honor Jan’s memory with my songs. I honor Jan by honoring my muse.
Jan recorded that last song I wrote–what–a few short months ago? She was feeling sick and weak, and could only stay for a short while. That was the last time I saw her.
To write well, I find, one has to write often. I am so out of the habit, it takes me an hour to find my way around the guitar when I sit down to write. It was a slippery slope that has brought me here. But the bottom line is, I stopped believing in the importance of song-writing. In the process of reorganizing my priorities, I found myself hovering over a bottomless pit of depression, with no life line. That is the importance of song-writing for me: it is my lifeline. When I am engaged writing a song, I know that I am doing what I was made to do. When I am being the respectable and dutiful husband and father, I am honoring only a part of myself. I lost my lifeline. Now I want it back.
I turn 50 in two weeks. My father died when he was 50. So it feels like my life is going into overtime. I’ve started having fears about never making it to my birthday. Perhaps this is my way of being sure I do something good now, in case my life ends here.
Seven songs. May they be good ones.