Back to business, after briefly giving everything over to promotion of the album. But before going into a (I hope) long stretch of uninterrupted song posting, a little conversation.
I've had a little post-project depression with the release of the album. It's the culmination of an intentional process of archiving creative output of the last decade or so (mostly - some of it goes back as much as 20 years) that first surfaced with establishing the text archive over at (warning - prominent f-word alert) It's Rome, Baby!. It started out with just wanting to tame what had become a tangled mess of computer files, but over time I suppose it became a sort of protracted contemplation of what I've been about, artistically speaking, from a bit of a height.
And it ends with perhaps some inevitable let-down. I generally try to view the reward of what I'm doing as being intrinsic to the process and primarily in service of my own clarity. Writing and making music does something salutary for my brain, and it is for this benefit that I continue. Even so, after putting a significant amount of time into organizing and presenting these little exhibitions, there is small but vocal part of me saying holy hell, man, what in the world are you up to?
But vocal or not, it hasn't stopped me, so I guess, there you go.
I recently started the first really long conceptual series of the second songs of days project. It's based on the Tao Teh Ching, that curt and enigmatic book of ancient Chinese philosophy I've read so many times with little wisdom penetrating my brain, as far as I can tell. The writing goes easily, but I'm not sure how I feel about the product. As is usual with the songs, though, this is no reason to drop the concept - there are 81 sections in the Tao, I've been at it a few weeks, in a couple months it will be done, regardless.
I've been doing much better writing the songs on their assigned days, which is ever the fundamental and elusive goal of the project. I haven't fallen more than a song or two behind for a while. But I'm still tending to slip and miss a day at least every week or two, mainly on the weekends. Still don't quite have that continuity down.
Nevertheless, persist.
You can read an explanation of the origin of these lyrics here
3 comments:
I think it's amazing what you're doing. Allow yourself the nostalgic pangs of depression to waft over you and then pick up that pen (keyboard?) and get back to it.
We're waiting on you, after all.
Sage advice. Excelsior!
Don't let the process overwhelm the product, my brother. Recently, I undertook a "fast" after listening to a sermon on Sunday. Most mornings, I read for 20 minutes, just something for pleasure, in between the shower and dressing for work. In the past, I used to do a few devotions as soon as I awoke, but the pleasure reading had somehow overtaken that previous routine. So I decided I would "fast" from pleasure reading for a week and instead pray. I discovered there was more time there than I realized--time enough to pray and read a few pages of my book. Sometimes it is the pauses that teach us the most.
Does this relate to what you're experiencing? Who knows? But I sensed part of your let down might be feeling that the great thing you are doing (and it is great as well as to the personal good) is largely unremarked by the universe. But, as Thomas says in his post, some of us are here, quietly waiting, listening, and marvelling, too.
With love,
your sister
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