I feel the same way, but it’s not easy. Once you get to a certain point in life, you realize loving is scary – it takes courage and an acceptance of risk. But it’s still the best thing we can do in this world.
The little, square book Show Your Work has changed they way I think about blogging, processing my ideas, and has even helped me see my own music playlists differently.
Okay, it’s actually my second snippet – I just didn’t realize that the first one (also from this book) was a snippet when I wrote it.
This book says that creative people should embrace collecting as part of the creation process.
There’s not as big of a difference between collecting and creating as you might think.
Show Your Work
Great musicians, writers, and artists tend to collect and appreciate other people’s work. “The reading feeds the writing, which feeds the reading,” the book says. Or to put it another way:
To that end, here is my ever-growing list of new songs I like, built up gradually over the last few years, thanks to Shazam and a few coffee shops with their own great playlists. As of this writing, this playlist is over 49 hours long and could double as its own radio station.
The irony of staying in it, and trying to make it work, even when you know you’re swimming upstream. Sometimes we’re drawn to a challenge, even if we know it’s doomed.
We’re cut adrift We’re still floating I’m only hanging on To watch you go down My love
The irony of someone thinking maybe they don’t belong there, and so they don’t.
The men who love you, you hate the most They pass right through you like a ghost They look for you, but your spirit is in the air Baby, you’re nowhere
Lucas Nelson has an amazing way of writing a song about one thing and then sneaking in a little mini-anthem about something else right in the middle. The mini-anthem hammers home the original point with an underlying truth.
It’s his jab-jab-jab-uppercut of songwriting. 🥊
On Find Yourself, Lucas rambles for a while about an unsatisfying relationship. Then the tone of the song briefly changes, and the mini-anthem bursts in.
I know the love that I deserve.
That’s the underlying truth to the rest of the song. It’s so beautiful and simple, it almost brings me to tears every time.
This song has some special meaning to me since I first heard it with a small but enthusiastic crowd at Lucy’s Friend Chicken in South Austin. Lucas Nelson sang it from the top of a picnic table as part of an unofficial SXSW performance. It sounded great, even without Lady Gaga. 😉
I haven’t been a huge fan of modern-day U2. I miss the more inspiring, mysterious, and just classic stuff from the 80’s and 90’s.
Still, some of their later-day songs creep up and get you — especially if someone else performs them. 🤷🏻♂️
For instance, Transient has done some really fresh remakes of U2 songs. They finally helped me appreciate the following song from 2000’s All That You Can’t Leave Behind, which I originally thought was, uh, pretty boring, but now see the beauty in it.
Thank you, Transient. 🙏
And the lyrics are perfect for someone who needs a little kick in the butt.
I never thought you were a fool But darling, look at you You gotta stand up straight, carry your own weight These tears are going nowhere baby
You’ve got to get yourself together You’ve got stuck in a moment And now you can’t get out of it Don’t say that later will be better Now you’re stuck in a moment And you can’t get out of it
Mental Break Town 