(This is the short version. Full version here.)
Perhaps you are an amateur guitar player. Perhaps you are a classical pianist. Perhaps you sing under the shower. Perhaps you are a soloist for a choir.
Whether you’ve made up songs or just played them, mastered instruments or just mimed them, written poems or just recited them – this manifesto is for you.
If you’ve been touched by the torch of songwriting, you need no excuse to keep the flame alive. Whether you make your living in art or not, you need no excuse to feed the fire within you.
Once you’ve imagined a song, no matter how frail, frantic, foolish, feverish or fragmented, you’ve brought something into the world that’s only there because of you. You are now a creator.
You are a songwriter!
Now there is no turning back. Now you are in debt. Now you owe the creative impulse and you need to honour it.
You need to embrace it, study it and share it!
Embrace it by letting it live within you, whether or not it puts food on the table and creates value for anyone else. It may not be logical or reasonable, but it is yours and it is alive. Acknowledge it, accept it and act on it –
Study it by deepening your understanding and enlarging your practice of all its aspects by all means possible. Copying and stealing are fine. Upsetting and sneering are fine. Theory courses, hands-on seminars, monastic retreats – all is good that keeps you learning and making stuff. Open the gates and let the flood wash over you. Then get up and make some more.
And don’t forget to share it! Don’t be a stranger. Sing your songs to others, give the bug to someone else, pass on the knowledge and experience you have assembled. You can’t take it with you to the grave, can you? But you can spread the good vibes and make the world more wholesome long after you’re gone.
Embrace it, study it, share it. Simple as that. And you’re not alone. We’re in this together!
This is our time and our place. Let’s make it count! Or better yet…
wowee