Monday, July 20, 2009

Songs from first person perspective

I think I remember reading an interview with Bob Dylan where he said something about his style being confessional as opposed to professional. Or something like that. Confessional is the main approach to songwriting by so many writers. It's certainly been mine for some time. Confessional, to me, doesn't mean that you necessarily are confessing as you might to a Catholic priest. That would be no guarantee of a great song at all. I'm sure any priest would be able to tell of some eye popping confessions and some boring ones. Confessional means being honestly you. There's alot of value in that. However, on my quest to write a song a week this year, I am finding that this is quite a confronting mirror to hold up. I see a man who is writing alone, to no one. I ask myself what is the point of all this. It's not exactly cathartic. Every song I write is a battle against my own negativity, which is not a place I want to be in, nor a position to write from. I have to willfully extract something positive out of my experience and ideas. That in itself is a useful thing for me personally, but what value is it to the world? Judging from the amount of money I make and the number of listens on my myspace page, or even the number of readers of my blog, it is close to zero. But that's by the by. What really bugs me is that all my songs are about individuals, mostly acting alone, not in concert with others. Much of what I think is private. I think that is true of most people. I would like to write songs featuring characters interacting with each other. Not just interacting with things and ideas.