The Costs Of Heart And Soul

This past week, I've been in the studio trying to catch up on the musical works. I have many a project that needs to be completed, and have not utilized my time in the sonic sector too well. Instead of writing and recording, I've spent far too much time reading, cooking, oh and of course writing for you fine people. Certainly all worthwhile pursuits, but it does make the "To-Do" list swell in size, and god knows I lose enough sleep as it is.

So, I cranked everything up and was determined to get down to it. My first order of business, as is my practice, was to listen to the last thing I finished before taking the break. I find that listening to one's prior completed projects has a couple of positive attributes. One, it's a boost to the ol' ego, ("Ha, I finished something!") and two, it helps to set the bar. Get an idea of where I've been, and make a plan of where I need to go next. And of course, make sure I'm not copying myself. Always important.

So, I pulled up the last thing I finished, which happened to be a shiny new track for the second BGO album. And after I finished listening, I realized why I took the break in the first place.

When I listen to a track of mine, I tend to block out the more unpleasant elements. Things like, having to play a guitar part eighty times because you kept messing up at the last second, or banging your head against a table trying to find useful words that rhyme with "sexy." All that nonsense gets pushed aside in my noodle as I review a song.

But this song was different. In this song, I remembered one very big detail about the process of writing it. I remembered how much writing this song had scared me.

Musically, the song went by without a hitch. The groundwork came together very quickly, the recording process was pretty smooth, not too many hiccups. A success in my book. The lyrics on the other hand....

Once I made a decision about what the song would be about, the process of writing those words down and singing them out loud gave me chills. I won't venture far into the subject matter of said song, might ruin the surprise y'know? But I will say it's one of the darkest things I've ever thought to put on paper. It's a subject that I had to think long and hard about just to try and write it as effectively as possible. When one dabbles in brutal subjects, make every word count right? Well I did it, as best as I could do. And when I was finished, I had to cuddle up to Mrs. Boogie for several hours to try and feel like a normal person again. I had dug so deep into the subject matter, that I actually felt like I was the guy I was writing about. It was a weight. A guilty, sticky weight, and it took me some time to shake it.

I'm not usually in the practice of writing like this. With Fuzzy Jank, I was still playing with the BGO sound, and as a result I didn't take the lyric writing too seriously. Oh sure, I based a lot of the content on personal experiences and stuff, but I didn't put a lot of thought into the darker aspects of what I was writing. I was just trying to make it funny and rhyme occasionally.

Not so with this second album, nope this time I had to take it a bit more seriously. If this was something I was going to hang my hat on, I needed it to be better than decent. Make sure heart and soul was firmly attached to what I was doing. And apparently, heart and soul sometimes required walking into the belly of a beast to pull the words out of.

I've been disturbed by things I've seen and things I've read, but never before by things I've written. It's an unsettling feeling to say the least. Sometimes, I honestly feel like I can't trust myself anymore. Any man sick enough to venture into those dark waters can't be all there right? Sane people who sing about love and flowers don't ever get institutionalized. These people never add details of why they're the brokenhearted. It's possible that it's ground not meant to be be treaded on. Dear god what have I done? They're gonna lock me up for sure.

Needless to say, my current projects are far happier, a bit more comedic, and much easier on the soul. So, it was easy enough to get back into the swing of things. As for where this goes from now on, who knows? Such a thing doesn't get lost or forgotten. Hell, I may have to call on it again, when some new piece of music commands I venture into the depths to write something with heart and soul.

Stand at the ready ye nice men in pretty white coats.