dear reader,
are you enjoying the fall air? our apartment is actually quite cold, since september is not the time for heat, and that’s made it an excellent week for hot food.
the weather and temperature have not conferred any special advantage, however, on my songwriting this week. the clear evenings and slow mornings seem promising, often, but i forget quickly how much timing (and precise timing, at that) is of the essence.
generally, things go something like this: inspiration strikes and i write some good songs, effortlessly; then, excited by the new material, i decide to write some more songs; lastly, with much effort and not much success, i give up on writing ’til the inspiration strikes again, and come away with a newly-minted resolution to respect the visitation of that inspiration.
(if i were a literary device, i would certainly be that of the untrustworthy narrator. how do i lose something that i’ve lost and subsequently found so many times prior? on one hand, such a propensity to weakness is something i strive against as i struggle to build continuity of consciousness that i do not feel as a fragmented person in a fragmented world. on the other, each new day brings its newness as strongly as it brings its misremembering. perhaps i should be thankful.)
inspiration: the unseen movement of an unknown, shorthand for what is probably a long list of misunderstood phenomena. all i can say is that it is fleeting.
“boldness has genius in it” comes to mind–perhaps on the subject of an impetus to strike while the proverbial iron is hot?–not only because of its content, but because its widely-attributed author, goethe, didn’t say it. some scottish guy, in a work published 1951, included the famous “translation” with some of his own writings on a similar subject. i suppose it’s possible that he deliberately fabricated the line, but i’d like to think its much more likely that he simply misremembered.
yes, fleeting: both inspiration and memory. maybe there’s only room in us for one.
Tags: by:steve, creativity, history, songwriting