I want you to accept that you are a songwriter. Say it. Say it now. Say it. Let’s all say it. I am a songwriter. We are all, everyone only as good as our honesty. And Id as that day. I’ve had this proven to me, not only by my own good days and bad days, and what is that good and bad in art, but I’ve known, I’ve noticed that it is to do with my honesty and my ideas flowing from that honesty and that openness and that vulnerability and that creativity and that well within me, and how well mine it and, and, and dip into that.
They’re my good days and I’ve seen it in others. So I’ve also been with the people who I thought I know, I’ve joked about this in the past, folks, it’s, it’s a joke only in retrospect at the time. It’s just real. It’s, it’s the fact. I’ve been in rooms with writers that I genuinely thought my lucky break wasn’t, you know, that I was gonna write a great song that day.
It was that I was in a room with, you know, fill in the blank writer who had just written these five global number one hits. And I’ve done that. I’ve been in rooms with those and so many times, I was full of hope that they were just going to kind of like, you know, breathe genius. And of course, they just weren’t. In fact, we’re rubbish like me, like you, like all of us, or great like me, like you, like all of us. The point is that we have to take on board that there is no right or wrong in art, and that I am a songwriter.
You own it. You can accept it and it changes. The reason that this is important is that it changes the respect you give to your ideas. This is a fundamental moment that either douses or ignites the sparks within you. It’s a, it’s a momentary thing. If you take on board deep into your heart that you are a songwriter, then those moments are real to you.
They’re valid and validated. So work and grow, of course, we wanna work and grow. It’s not just kind of, oh, they’re my ideas. I’m a genius. That is not at all what I am saying, but too often we go the other way where we think we’ve got everything to learn and nothing to listen to inside that’s already there. Tonight is about allowing the inner voice to be heard and accepting that excellence early in the process.
So work and grow, of course, but accept that you are already the unique writer that you need to be. I’m gonna go into this more, but really take that on board. You are already, this is your greatest strength, is your, your experience, your individuality, your musical melting pot, The culmination of all your life events and everything you’ve heard and said, coming together in your perspective.
You are already the unique writer that you need to be. So trust your inner voice. Your musical intuition is a lifetime of learning, waiting to be tapped. Think about that. The number of times I’ve started in a writing session or on my own writing, and I’ve been up here and kind of waited for, you know, for me to play something that I like or something, instead of kind of going at it from a place of expecting and accepting that the music is within me and within you.
Of course it is. It’s a musical melting pot of the heritage of everything we’ve heard coming together. Neuro pathways coming together in, in different ways to create something new or said in a different way, however, that comes about. So let’s not diminish that pool in favor of constant searching, doubt and fear-filled searching your musical intuition is a lifetime of learning, waiting to be tapped.
So make the music you want to hear. I know that’s profoundly simple. It is also profoundly effective in clearing away the multitude of options that you have when you go to start creating anything, make the music you want to hear.
We cannot. It’s that old saying, we cannot, you know, please all the people all of the time, you know, we don’t want to. If we do, we will end up pleasing no one and most of all ourselves. So make the music you want to hear. That is as good career advice as it is fulfilling on an artistic level, okay? It will mean that there is passion and purpose and all that good gravy in there. When you make the music you want to hear, follow that back one step and trust the musical intuition. That is your lifetime of learning, waiting to be tapped inside you.
That fear that can prevent us acting on these impulses or singing the first thing that’s in our heart. I’m gonna get into that more. The actual practical application of this, that fear, that resistance. You know, Stephen Pressfield, if anyone hasn’t got or hasn’t heard of a book called The War of Art and the struggle with procrastination or just a general sense of resistance, it’s an exceptionally good book kind of page a day if you want.
it’s rich and dense in terms of this subject that we are talking about tonight about that he believes that’s an actual force like gravity or, you know, light or you know, energy that is holding that creative impulse back and pushing you back. And it’s essentially fear and it will manifest in lots of different ways. Excuses, procrastination. Oh, someone’s already written that, or, or they won’t like this.
Or, oh, it’s too whatever. Fill in the blank. You know, those voices inside our head now. Those voices inside our head hate action. Absolutely hate action. Taking action against the oncoming, you know, barrage of negativity that the brain can, and it doesn’t necessarily manifest in, in words and actual thoughts. It’s a kind of general kind of, oh yeah, I better just sharpen those pencils rather than start writing the lyric.
Or I think I’ll pack the rock sack rather than climb the mountain. All of that stuff, you know, paint the studio, all of that stuff is resistance and fear and it hates when you actually start writing with the pencil or you put the rock sack in the back and take the first step, or you put the paint brush down and pick up the guitar. Fear hates action. I weiwei the Chinese, artist, phenomena, if any of you want to read again, phenomenal books and beautiful art.
checkout I Weiwei. he said A small act is worth a million thoughts, and I think I could sit and if I ever got the opportunity to talk to him about that, it would be a long conversation because it is so simple yet so, brilliantly true that, you know, for the over thinker that includes all of us, a small act, that one action that I’ll eventually take, and I think of the millions of thoughts preceding it, clouding it, stopping it, and that small act is the only part of it that’s real.
A small act is worth a million thoughts, and this will tie in as you will see shortly with accepting the excellence in you early in the process. This took me years to get to that. It doesn’t need to be a struggle, that there will be struggles, but we’re not at the expense of the well of musical intuition we already have.
But I can hear you ask, how do I begin with a doubting heart? Except there is no wrong in art Sing sweetheart sing. This is when we want to get into action, guys. This is all about realizing that what is it we are holding back from?
I cannot do any wrong. It will only be something I either like or don’t like. That is not a right or wrong. So how do I begin? How do I begin when I have that doubting heart and that feeling of resistance? Except there is no wrong in art and sing, sweetheart sing, get going. Let’s get into action.
