The Songwriting Begins (And, Man, Was It Bad)
It’s much easier to criticize your older work than it is to praise it. But that fruit is often particularly low-hanging in those early days, making you come across more like a bully against your younger self than an astute analyst. The further back you go into the annals of your creative life, the more fundamental, load-bearing pillars you start bumping into. Sure, those pillars have since been covered by more attractive adornments, but rip the house apart enough and you’ll start to realize how critical some of those ugly pillars are to the integrity of the structure.
My first song —“Untitled,” because I guess I thought that made me deep— is a cringey, repetitive break-up song full of embarrassing pseudo-emotional crooning, tired cliches, and teen angst. Except I was like 22 when I wrote it, which is devastating to my self-confidence. I don’t have the protective age coating working in my favor when it comes to lackluster songwriting; I don’t get to hide behind the “Give me a break, I was only 14 when I wrote this!”
Instead, I have to acknowledge that I was writing this at the same age the Beatles played Ed Sullivan, and Dylan released The Times They Are A-Changin. I can defend my younger self as much as I like, but it’s pretty hard to argue that I wasn’t behind the curve.
Before I get into full-on bully mode, regardless of the age at which I wrote it, the fact remains that it was my first song. Though it drowns in questionable musical decision making at most every turn, it enjoys its own form of protective coating by being, more or less, allowed to suck given its place in my timeline.
I don’t recall the initial feelings I had about “Untitled” —Was I excited that I was able to finish a song? Did I think it was really good?— but I do recall being extremely hesitant to share it in a live setting, opting to perform endless parades of cover songs instead.
Though “cover” is the term used to describe any performance of a song not done by the song’s original performer/composer, it is such an appropriate word choice for how I used these songs: As creative cover for my own work. These covers served as a means by which I could share music, but without exposing myself to the vulnerability to which sharing my own songs would open me up.
I very much understand the motivation for such feelings, but also very much think it is a fallacy. I hid behind the songs of Bob Dylan, Colin Meloy, and others thinking that their quality would lend me their legitimacy, as if they might serve as a bridge while I was theoretically writing my own great songs.
But covering those songs was never going to gain me the audience I desperately sought. Of course, you don’t think that way at such an early juncture. You feel like you have to put your best foot forward, and at that time, the best foot forward feels like other songs that you know are way, way better than your own.
An interesting aspect here that echoes the very first open mic I ever performed at is how arrogant I, subconsciously, was about my performance ability. My mind behaved as if the only thing in question was the quality of the songs themselves, not whether or not my performance of them was any good. Which, in hindsight, is absolutely baffling. But to echo the earlier post’s sentiments, I suppose you have to believe some level of farcical nonsense to get yourself started.
The first my-name-on-the-bill show I played was at Leaves n’ Beans Coffee in December of 2008. I played twenty songs over two hours. I wish I still had the setlist, but I can tell you this: It had two original songs —early versions of “Untitled” and “Shadow Blues,” another early-Brian song that later got recorded in 2010 on my first original EP, The Part to Play— and probably about twelve Decemberists songs.
The problem with First Shows is that for most of us musicians they give an entirely unrealistic expectation for all shows that follow. Everybody in my circles came through the door, their presence a combination of genuine support and sadistic curiosity, perfectly encapsulated by Varys’ quip to Little Finger in Season 3 of Game of Thrones: “Thwarting you has never been my primary ambition, I promise you. Although who doesn’t like to see their friends fail now and then.”
The other problem that arises from this initial flood of support is that everyone is locked into you at the moment you are the least skilled. Your playing live is novel, worth checking out because of that support-to-curiosity ratio. By the time you get to be any good, a lot of that support has moved onto other things. But I wasn’t thinking any of that in 2008; I was thinking about winning everyone over because I thought I was already pretty good.
For all the early, if necessary, delusions, I had one moment of meta-level clarity that night: I remember looking at the twenty songs written in the notebook and thinking how cool it was going to be to slowly watch my sets go from 90% covers to 90% originals as I continued to write songs —a milestone I would reach around 2014.
“Untitled,” while it sounds like a direct account of my failed relationship from that era, I actually remember feeling like I wrote the song for that person. Not as some antagonistic breakup track, but as a means to illustrate the sadness I felt about the whole thing. Which was, by 2008, old news and not particularly relevant to either of our lives anymore. Lame, I know, but — hang on, let me try this out— it was my first song. Mmm, that felt great.
I don’t know if a lot of young songwriters do the same thing, but I see a consistent attempt in my early songs to refer to small amounts of time as much more significant. Maybe it’s a tactic relative to age —a year is 5% of your life at 20; where it’s only 2% at 50— but my instinct says it has more to do with the emotional amplification at which that age group is so adept.
In “Untitled,” I sing forlornly of the time period of eleven months as if it stretched back to the Industrial Revolution. There are so many elements of this song that pull from the same corner of that toolbox:
What change has come since last we spoke?
Has it really been that long?
I guess it’s long enough that I wrote you this song.
Oof. We hadn’t talked in a couple of months; my language suggests decades.
Year after year, you’d never know we’d be here
Not knowing if you’re gone or home
I thought I showed all that could be shown.
Now we’ve jumped to years. Using “gone or home” as the two measurements really signals what stage of life I was in (re: college departures/home visits).
Thinking about all that once was
never thinking that change would come
even though it had already come for some
Sigh. Here we go again. This relationship lasted five months, not five years. And it kind of sounds like I’m contemplating death.
Where would we be had things stayed the same?
Would we be so far away?
Would you still have chosen to go your way?
Or would you have chosen to stay?
I remember thinking that last line was really powerful, that it brought a sense of weight to the whole exercise. Which is embarrassing and laughable now, but in those days I had a defining preoccupation with writing the sorts of songs I thought I was “supposed” to be writing —schmaltzy, introspective songs about love and relationships— because that’s what songwriters do! Such misguided focus led to lots of square-peg-round-hole moments in my early songs.
While it’s tempting to continue analyzing my lyrics through the it was my first song lens, I think the loudest takeaway is the emotional immaturity of that time. Romantically speaking, I was a late bloomer, and I think you can hear it in those words, regardless of where I was as a songwriter. The angst reads like someone maybe five years my junior because I was navigating those sort of feelings for the first time.
Which brings us back, again, to the foundational pillars. I would go on to write more bland songs about vague emotional angst, but these songs illustrated to me what not to do. They have become early instruction manuals on the basics of songwriting, or at least on the version of songwriting I desire to pursue.
And that begins to get at why our disastrous early attempts at creating are so foundational to our future success. I quickly —though not as quickly as I may have liked— understood that trying to tie compelling, relatable emotions to bland, nonspecific language got me nowhere. Eventually, it became clear that in order for my songs to work, I was going to have to stake a claim: on an idea, a point of view, or, god forbid, an opinion that everyone wouldn't agree with.
It's like the song knows that your commitment to what it's saying is lukewarm, and rewards you with an equally lukewarm final product. I think I've gotten better at navigating that lesson, but there are miles to go before I sleep.