Cutting away the fat
For me, writing is a balance between personal therapy and the decision making of what I want to say to the world, the message I want to spread. It’s a chance to cut away the fat, all the useless flab of noise that often accommodates the original expression. Of course, if I go too far in this it’s always possible to be left with a truncation that is so small, well we get twitter.
When I jokingly wrote “It’s ok for girls to dance with girls” I was aware that it didn’t fit anywhere. It wasn’t radio material, more of a nod to James Brown musically and a nod to the intellectuals lyrically “even Darwin said nature finds a way/the girls take it on the dancefloor today”
A member of my band didn’t understand the lyrics (nor probably care) and there were a lot of fans that just wanted to dance to it. No harm done in that.
As time goes on and language changes I ask myself will someone “get me” if they read my lyrics, alone with no music. Surrendering myself to the practicality that I won’t have control is the best and easiest way to dismiss a concern like this and to simply keep playing and writing.