I love music. I love the way it takes you places. Like a great movie, a song can take you away from wherever you are and place you somewhere else. Music can help you understand someone else better. It can help you understand yourself.
Writing songs has always helped me understand myself better. I often sit down to write with this weird feeling in my chest, like I don't know what to say, or what's going on but I just need to say something. By the time I'm finished the song, I have not only spilled what’s in my heart, but I seem to come to an understanding of it, and some sort of release. People ask me if I find writing cathartic. Of course. But more than that, I find it necessary. It’s like its what I was born to do and I couldn't stop if I tried.
I've often wished that music wasn't the path set before me. I've thought about other possible career paths and how great it would be to be able to follow a simple plan. Study hard, get a job in my field, work hard, and move through the ranks. The best bit would be where the pay comes in each week and you get sick days!!! Well, not with music. You can work hard, but unless you know what you're doing, you could be working hard on all the wrong things. There's no set path that people take, its so variable, and so attached to who you are as a human being.
Sometimes it hurts. To go to a gig and do the best you can, bare your soul through music, and have people not like you, even if its just one misery guts who feels like taking it all out on the musician - its hard not to take personally. But I'm learning. At the end of the day you can't please everyone, that's just a fact you have to deal with. So you may as well give your all to what you believe in.
So I do. I write what comes, and I say the things I need to say. Heartbreak helps! After my last break up I've written more songs than ever. They just keep coming - and I won't stop a song in its path. I tried that - and then nothing happens. Its like a wall goes up because I'm not saying what I need to. So I let them come. But there in itself is the silver lining. I don't have to keep it all inside, and maybe one of the songs will help someone else avoid the same pitfalls, or let go of some of their own pain.
That's the other thing I love about music. Sometimes life is hard. Sometimes it hurts. But there are songs to sing it all out, and songs to let it go, and songs to give you hope and songs to celebrate again. Music is amazing. I really think it’s a gift. Who would think that a blend of frequencies and patterns and tones could be so moving? Or that we could all be a part of it!
I have changed my definition of success - and it’s helped me on this path. I think the definition of success for me is about being true to what's in my heart. The highlight of my career has to be a moment on the South Coast of NSW, where a lady came up and asked me to sing a song I wrote years ago called 'So Far From Perfect'. Afterwards she came up and said that that song helped her get through Christmas. It hit me. My songs aren't just for me. That song is not a 'positive' song. It’s about how hard it was for me to even breathe sometimes. But, sometimes the positive spin is that someone has been where you are and got through it, and there's the hope. I love the way that my stories impact others. It’s a blessing. My job is to just keep telling them I guess - and doing that, with integrity and honesty is my version of success.
I hope you like my songs. I hope that somewhere in amongst them there is one for you.
