alright, i will warn you guys ahead of time that this isn't as light hearted as my usual posts. more....contemplative, i'd say.
i'm an honest person. something i've had to watch myself on is honesty-overload. i think it's something that people who are artistic-minded do. musicians, especially. honesty has created vulnerability, which usually causes feelings to be hurt when the wrong person comes along. which leads to insecurities.
i consider myself now a strong, confident woman. this wasn't always the case, and sometimes the overly-honest, insecure girl creeps back. i see it when i'm working at my second job and my coworkers ask about my weekend and i go into detail, realizing afterward that they know way more about my life than i do theirs. i have brushed it off, thinking, "well i have a lot of stuff going on in my life, maybe they don't".
usually, i try not to pour my heart out to everyone i see, because as i had mentioned, it has caused vulnerability in my life.
...but then it recently dawned on me: if i want to write songs, how am i going to sing about my own life in front of tons of people without causing vulnerability? i've realized that all the performances i have ever done have been through other people's words. even if i could relate to them, i could always fall back on the "well, i didn't write it...it's not about ME" excuse if anyone questions it. maybe this is what ultimately holds me back.
the only exception to this is my 'hit song' with josie called 'cancerboy' (check out myspace.com/josieandkaren or cdbaby.com/josieandkaren if you haven't heard it)....which actually IS a true story from my life, but ended up kind of being a smug, joke-ish song about my ex.
so. the question is....where do i draw the line on how much i tell people about my life? does it change for different situations? at my full time job, i'm known as the "quiet one" and only share big things in my life with coworkers (mainly the ones i'm already friends with). in business, i'm careful not to be too negative, so i don't always share about things that are stressing me out. but for music, sometimes the negative things inspire me to write. hmmm.
so what do you all think? is there a happy balance to reach between tmi and being too secretive?
hopefully all this makes sense...i'm kind of just rambling about what just popped in my mind!
5 comments:
i too have been guilty of wearing my heart on my sleeve (tattoos and emotions). it may seem self-centered but i figure if i'm brave enought to shine light on my shadows others will come out of hiding. i do need to learn to button up again, but i'm not going back to the caged self. life is to short to hide :).
i think it's a habit of musicians. when i think about what i would want to write in songs, it's never really light-hearted, happy-go-lucky subjects. then again, maybe it has to do with the fact that the few love songs i HAVE written (for past boyfriends) never ended up quite right. haha
write what makes you feel right... Don't worry about other's thoughts and feelings towards their songs... I guarantee if Dave Grohl only wrote what he thought others wanted to hear, we wouldn't have amazing songs like Skin and Bones and Everlong and Times Like These... We'd have "so happy Together", "I wanna Hold Your Hand", and keep in mind... we wouldn't have the musical genius of songs such as "Inna Gada Da Vida" or Rainy Day Women... Keep on rockin' hun!
thanks!
i guess i'm just trying to find a healthy balance in attitude for all aspects of my life. :)
yep, you gotta write what you feel, and it needs to be "honest", because an audience can and will see right thru it! Love your blog, btw! think I'll stay awhile
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