Hi friend,
I’ve felt a bit boxed in by chronic illness lately and not just in the literal term.
I (unfortunately) cannot erase chronic illness from my life (yet) and I don’t want to distance myself from it either as it is a large part of my life.
But I do want to be something more than someone living with a chronic illness.
I’ve noticed lately, on social media, that when I speak about or share songs concerning chronic illness it gets more attention than when I speak about or share songs about other stuff. I know it’s the algorithm, but it does make me feel boxed in.
I have been pondering the tension between creating what gets a response and creating what I love.
Of course my focus is on creating what I love, but it can be tough when what you love doesn’t get the response you feel it deserves.
My weekly songwriting challenge is helping me work through this, though. The first song I wrote, called Troubled Mind, was not about chronic illness, but about worrying about the state of the world. The second song, Am I Nearly There?, could be about chronic illness, but it is more about yearning to let go of worries and be held and float away.
And I’m writing them anyway. And posting them anyway. And trying not to focus on the number of likes or comments — although it does make my day when you comment on my songs!
I don’t want chronic illness to be my genre. And I don’t want to feel boxed in. I want to write about chronic illness when I have something to say about it and write about other stuff too.
It’s week three of my songwriting challenge and this week I found myself… well… challenged.
I created a fun chord progression and started singing and the words that came out of my mouth were “I walked down to the river.”
Ok. Good start. But I had no clue what this was about.
I did my ‘mumbling’ exercise where I play the chords and mumble all kinds of sounds until I mumbled “…standing there.”
Ok. I can work with that, I guess.
And suddenly what was standing there was a man in a grey fedora looking dishevelled and frayed. And I thought: What on Earth have I gotten myself into?
I normally write songs where I early on in the process know what the song is about, at least to an extent, but I was completely clueless as to what this man standing by the river in a grey fedora wanted or who he even was.
Also, I haven’t written a lot of storytelling songs where the story is about another character other than myself (although I did write Powerful People’s Anthem, which depicts a crazy politician). So I found myself treading deeper waters.
I had to sleep on it.
Next day, I looked and looked at the first verse which originally read: I went down to the river | And I saw him standing there | He was wearing a grey fedora | And his tie was dishevelled and frayed. But I couldn’t figure out what was going on with this man. Had he lost his job? Got into a fight? What happened?
I then decided to turn him into a ghost — that felt more like me. And I decided that he has regrets about not choosing to love. In my world, that must be the biggest regret one could ever live with.
Eventually, the story unfolded lyric by lyric, but I had to work for it! And ooh that decision fatigue!
But this is why I created this challenge for myself! To not give up and to work through the difficult and rough stuff and to write songs that I don’t normally write or that aren’t masterpieces and be OK with that.
Here are the lyrics:
I walked down to the river
And I saw him standing there
He was wearing a grey fedora
His limbs transparent and he floated on air
Oh and he wept
To the quiet tunes I hummed
Oh and he whispered
He was tired of always being numb
His mind played stories
Of a time
When he ignored her pleas for love
She left that day
In his empty house
Still a thick air of regrets
He walks down to the river
Every morning to see his wife
He takes off his grey fedora
Speaks incantations to turn back time
Each day he greets her
But she ignores his sweet hellos
Each day he hugs her
But he falls right through, he knows
His mind played stories
Of a time
When he ignored her pleas for love
She left that day
In his empty house
Still a thick air of regrets
Oooh still a thick air of regrets
I can’t wait to find out what next week’s song will be about, it’s always exciting.
Tell me…
What would be your biggest regret on your deathbed?
Do you have any regrets now?
What are your favourite lines in the song?
I’d love to know in the comments!
