670
The number of days since I’ve shared new music with you. 1 year 10 months and 8 days of battling my perfectionism and my will to create with care. Making sure whatever came next not only met but raised the bar I set for myself with Born in The Sunset.
When I dropped Born in the Sunset I got a lot more coverage than expected. It was great to feel recognized but every interviewer had one question as we closed:
What’s next?
I didn’t have an answer then. Didn’t they realize all that I had been through? how deeply I dug within myself, no matter how excruciating, to create this project? A global pandemic. Losing all of my gear and having to buy anew. Forced to move back home and make music out of a closet with no windows. 35 songs down to 7. A short-film reduced to a script and a website.
I was resentful and hard on myself.
The last 2 years have been a deconstruction and rebuilding from scratch of my creative process and my relationship with my art. I started treating myself like a professional, practicing daily, honing my discipline, and trying not judge my creations so much. I learned to treat myself with more care and to reorient my creative fuel from pain and catharsis to joy and contentment.
Taking one step back, I’m just a guy that likes to make songs and share them with others. If that’s true, then it’s time I share.
Maybe I Give Up is a reminder not to. But it’s also a reminder that I don’t have to be anything at all. That I am just a man and I do just make songs and that’s okay.
This song is the manifestation of overcoming perfectionism. I told myself before I sat down to make this song that I would release it no matter what. Most songs at this point in my creative process are not even good. My hit rate is somewhere 2/10? I had zero preconception of what would come of it. So I had to trust myself to create something worth releasing. That was hard but good for me. I love what it stands for despite feeling good, not great, about the actual music.
A good song done and released to the world is better than a great song that’s incomplete and taking up space on my computer.
Through practice, I'm growing and learning, sometimes re-learning every day. Lately, I've been remembering that two things seemingly opposed can be true:
- it's good to make with tenderness and care in all I do
- it's good to try not to be too precious with my creations.
Listen and read along to Maybe I give up. here.
Thank you for listening.