Head vs. Heart

Just a heads-up: if you have an 8 AM Sunday flight to the US, there’s really no need to get up at 4 and rush to the airport for the recommended 2-hour pre-board. There was a longer line-up at the Tim Horton’s than there was at customs!

Well, well. I checked the 'business' box as reason for visit on the customs card. That was fun.

The classic match-up of head vs. heart
This week was interesting. Remember that box of fancy blue demo CDs I had made and shipped to Nashville ahead of time? Well, I’ve decided to trash them upon arrival. I wrote a song in Aug-Sept called The Man I Want To Be. When we were nearly finished mixing it in October, I stumbled upon the same title on the NSAI website – a song by Chris Young. I bought the track on iTunes and had a listen. The hook line was pretty similar. I felt uneasy about it, but I went ahead and put it on the demo disk anyway. My head said “pull the plug.” But my heart said, “it’s a beautiful song and you guys have worked so hard on the demo, keep it.” The head was right, but I’m a slow learner.

That realization was hammered home by feedback from a NSAI song evaluator. She said great things about the song: liked the lyrics, good match of melody and theme, etc. But then she stated the obvious that I’d been pretending not to see. You’ve gotta write a new chorus and hook.

There’s no way the song can be considered with the current lyrics. The Young song was a huge hit. Clearly, I need to work more radio time into my day. So…. several hundred dollars later, I have a box of 50 matching drink coasters. Don’t be surprised if you get a set for Christmas. :-)

So yesterday I went to Grand & Toy and picked up a pack of CD labels; I’ll burn a new batch of DIY disks today.

I also submitted two other songs to the same evaluator. It’s interesting how you think a song’s been finished for ages, when somebody comes along and asks a question about the lyrics. The feedback was really positive, but just a few things that she felt could be strengthened. It’s interesting that it didn’t upset me like it would have in the past. I remember getting feedback from a guy at Sony several years ago and it took months for me to see he was right and go revise the lyrics. That song started out as ‘New York’ on my old band’s EP and ended up as ‘Warning Signs’ on ‘Out Of Order.’

The reason why the criticism in this latest NSAI review (which was mostly favorable anyway!) didn’t upset me, is that I am more open now and genuinely interested in making the songs better. Whereas, before, I think I was stubborn and probably really just hoping for approval of what I had rather than wanting help to improve.

The funny thing about that poorly received critique years ago is that, when I finally came around and took the advice, I started applying it to other songs. Before that, I used to think that however a song came out initially, however the muse presented it first, that’s how it had to stay. What a load of malarkey!

Still though, editing songs for my own personal art (as my two albums have been) and editing songs for more broad commercial appeal, are turning out to be two different beasts. I’m proud of my two records, and I’ve had many strangers at shows etc give wonderful comments and compliments about the songs that they could relate to. But aside from the associations and interpretations those folks had with the poetic lyrics, the songs were primarily inward focused and, save for a few, not the sort of story-telling material that works best in Nashville.

So I’m adapting. And learning.

Tonight, for instance, I hope to learn from some of the best at the Bluebird.