Tobacco Spit

I want to be a better songwriter. Usually, I sit down and write my soul, something heart felt and meaningful. Then I listen to popular country radio. I mean I love Country music. I grew up in the south and I'm proud of my southern accent. But come on.

The deep meaningful heartfelt country lyrics I heard last night were: "chew tobacco, chew tobacco, chew tobacco, spit." That was Blake Shelton's new song. He sang with Luke Bryan, Cheryl Crow and his wife Miranda Lambert's band the Pistol Annies, as the opening number for the Academy of Country Music Awards.

Now don't get me wrong, I really like popular music. I think it's easy to hate on Taylor swift or John Mayer or Mumford. But like anything else, it's easy to hate on something or marginalize it until you try it. It's freaking hard to write a good pop song, and it's almost impossible to do it consistently.

So what makes a good song? Well, I don't know exactly. But I thin feeling has a lot to do with it.

Music should be pure emotion. I was talking with a musician friend of mine recently and we were trying to figure out what makes a good song, and the fact that most of the time, sheer musical talent doesn't translate into musical success. So what sets those "good" songs apart? I think it all comes back to pure emotion.

I occasionally do the music for one of the ministries at my church. A couple of weeks ago, after I had performed, the leader emailed me and said that we (my band and I) had "knocked it out of the park." Which has never happened before.

I called the guys in my band and my sound guy and asked if they heard anything special that night. They all thought it was a solid performance, but not a home run. So I was confused about what made it so good. Then as I was talking to my musician friend, I made the statement that I probably had the most fun playing that night that I'd ever had. And that was it. It finally hit me. That was the difference. The people could see, and hear that I was having a great time.

Music has to move people. It can be country, bluegrass, pop, rock, or even the wobbling bass lines of dub step. It doesn't matter, as long as it's pure emotion. And that emotion has to come first and foremost from the performer.

After listening to Blake's songs a few more times, I could hear that he as having a great time. Now I really like the song. It makes all the difference.

Yellow Woods

I like writing. I enjoy stringing random letters together that when read from left to right and top to bottom sometimes make coherent thoughts. And when read in the same way as mentioned before, on even more rare occasions, make halfway decent points. I recently read a popular writer that said you should write because you like it and you're good at it. One of those two things is true of me. I'm not sure if the other will ever be true. I hope that a year from now I can re-read this and say man that was bad, because that will mean I have gotten better. I'm not really sure why I want to be a better writer, I just do. So now I blog.

If you read my blog, be warned: There will be a lot of terrible first drafts. In fact, the finished product may always be a crappy first draft, but hey, it's my crappy first draft. And that makes all the difference.

Robert Frost was wrong. The thing that made the difference wasn't that he took the road less traveled by, but the fact that it was HIS journey. Who cares if you've traveled the same path as everyone else, or a different path, or if you're even using the same map. What matters is the traveling part. And I was born with a suitcase in my hand, which was probably difficult for my mother, but I've always liked the traveling part. So I'm going to start walking. If your path parallels or crosses mine from time to time, cool. If not, that's okay too.

Mostly I'm just looking for therapy through writing. The more I read about writers, I'm finding that is the reason that all of them write. There is something about putting thoughts down on paper, even digital paper, that is freeing. I'm still trying to work out what that means.

In the end, writing is constantly traveling to find truth. For the best writers, writing and the truth are the same thing. That's what I hope to find in the yellow wood. My truth. I want to be a better writer, so that I can consistently write from the truth. So I'm going to see if I can find it somewhere in here. I'm not sure if my path has been well traveled, is covered in overgrowth, or if I'm even in the woods. But I'm traveling.