For those of you who are slightly new to this whole shebang, you should know that Trio has effectively become my get-out-of-blog free card. How it works is, basically, I lay my artistic soul bare for you in a 10-12 minute concert that, despite its sound of carefree ease, involves hours of sweat, profanity, and occasional blood to produce. Flush from my artistic efforts an enamored with my new tuneage, I typically let Trio sit at the top of the page for a week (or more) so that my barely-existant fanbase has no trouble locating and clicking upon the special feature repeatedly to satiate their listening desires.
Right.
In related news, I’m having trouble writing about anything lately, because I don’t know what to write about. I am happy. I am sedate. I am routine. These are the makings of a dull, repetetive folk record, not my next rock opus.
Last week I finished my book of lyrics.
I feel just as odd reading that sentence as I did shutting the book last week. The book, my book, that slim grey volume I bought my first week of college, and furiously jotted into that week after I had my first drink, is finally finished. It’s over. Done. Complete.
What’s funny is that I didn’t even know it was full. I knew I had about a dozen blank pages left, and I had been scribbling songs out elsewhere, on other pads, so as not to put any irrelevant junk-lyrics in my book. When I finally piled all of my scribblings up for transcription I realized I had more than enough to complete the book. Enough, in fact, to make a decent start on a new book.
Not only is it full, but the last song that would fit was “A Little Bit,” the (bouncy, self-depricatingly optimistic) song I wrote the day before I moved out of my college apartment – the perfect bookend to “Crashing,” the (plodding, drearily pessimistic) song I wrote after my first college party.
Paging back through favorite songs and discarded lyrics, I realized that I can’t really claim that all my good work came from conflict or tension. “A Little Bit” came from an almost perfect zen, “So Hard” came from a poetic IM conversation, and “Punk” came from out of nowhere. Lately I have mistaken a reluctance to write something for an inability to write anything, but maybe it’s for the best – I have songs I’ve never really finished, or never really learned – why am I in such a rush to add any more?
Anyhow, I need to decide what my new book (my third) will be, so I can move on with my life and writing.