In With The New, Out With The Old?

As much as I like to recycle, there's always a tipping point. And I speak of music here of course. Last year, I wrote of reusing old tunes in my overall effort to rid the world of musical pollution in my post "Going Green By Recycling...Old Tunes." But lately, I've been cruising through my old Moleskines and my tried and true technique is feeling a bit over tried and a lot less true.

It is true that a lyric I wrote down 5 years ago might not have worked back then yet fits perfectly with a new riff that I pumped out yesterday. But overall, I've found that I was in different place in 2005. Not only do I now live half way across the country, but I hang with new people, I've had a myriad of experiences, and maybe most decisively, I'm not going through a colossal break up.  I bet you can imagine how depressing, boring and whiny every line of these books feels today.

Life events like break ups give major inspiration. Some good tunes come from them but from my experience, it's mostly just cry baby drivel. Who wants to hear that? I don't. And I don't want to perform it either.

So where does that put me? It makes me a regular Sly Sludge, reveling in my skills to pollute and plunder, leaving a trail of unused, discarded lyrics and guitar riffs in my wake. (Keep up with the random Captain Planet reference.) But you know what? I'm ok with that. The last thing I want to be remembered for is being that guy that people couldn't stand listening to because of his outdated, unimaginative lyrics that just made everyone want to shoot themselves. I've decided that picking a line from here and there to get things moving isn't a bad thing, but I also have to live in the now and work with events going on around me in 2010. There's no shortage.

The hardest part is giving up all that work from back then. But since I'm looking for new as well as more fulfilling lyrics in my writing, good riddance. Here's to upbeat and rockin' songs that don't make people cry. Unless that's what I'm going for of course.


Rock on!