One Gift of Songwriting

Right in the middle of the process, all seems lost.

I have a chorus, but no verse.  Or everything is done except for a few troublesome lines.

I know that everything might stop here.  The song may go no further.

It is this point in the creative process which may be its greatest gift.  I'm neither lost in the infatuated euphoria of my song's beginnings, nor happily satisfied with my catchy finished product.

I'm in the "neither here nor there", which can be a place of openness and wonder.  What will happen next?  What will rise up to fill the gap?

Something will.  And before long, another song will be finished...neatly framed and solid. 

I like to focus on that finished, definable thing. 

But I am learning that the greater gift is the Mystery. 

Fragments

People are always making things up and leaving them lying around. 

Some of our made-up things get "finished": framed in neat packages that allow us to hand them off to others.  Other artistic ideas are flung off in sparkling fragments, like oddly-shaped bits of sea-glass waiting to be found. 

Here's one I found today, buried in a neglected corner of my 'documents' folder:
 

I’d like to live alone

To do the things I like

  ___ unknown

Eat breakfast food at night

I’d like to live alone

To be all by myself

A solitary gnome

A cheerful woodland elf

  

Actually, today I'm very happy living with others.  And yet I like this unfinished little poem.  

I don't believe that anything else needs to be "done" with it.  It doesn't need to be developed or turned into a larger work.  In time (perhaps soon) the file will be deleted.  

In the meantime,  perhaps for only a short time and while I am completely alone, I can pick up a fragment and appreciate it.

Is every song a topical song?

Every song is written in a specific time and place, by a particular person.

As soon as the song is finished, the writer has grown and changed. (Remember the concept of wabi-sabi: nothing is perfect, nothing is finished, and nothing lasts!)

Ideally, we want to pay close enough attention to whatever's going on in our lives to we reflect on it accurately and with real depth of feeling. We can take that approach to any topic: whether it's feeding our two year-old or responding to coverage of a major international event.

The details will be different, but the task is still the same: to create something that honestly reflects one moving human experience, in a way that others find meaningful.

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Last year I wrote the song "Prayer for Port au Prince" in response to the Jan. 12 2010 earthquake in Haiti. In it, I tried to make reference to the current events and historical facts, while wrestling with personal issues having to do with charity, religion and response to global suffering.

Here's video from a concert performance, with proceeds directed to Medicins sans Frontieres.