An art teacher once told me that the ideas you have when you're starting out ,in your twenties, will be your best ideas. You will always come back to them. You may approach them from different angles, expand, invert, and subvert but they will be the themes to your life's work. So, don't fight it. He wasn't wrong.
One of the things that scares me the most about aging is the ,some would say inevitable, dissipation of your passion. The zeal with which you once attacked everything from making art, playing music, drinking, having sex, even just socializing, fades over time. Of course the novelty wears off and the urgency seems to fade but, perhaps more disturbingly, the importance and necessity you once attached to these activities are seemingly lessened as they take their place in the ranking among much less spiritually nourishing activities like feeding yourself, maintaining an acceptable level of cleanliness and other grown up pursuits.
I've always felt that the creative things I do are essential to the proper maintenance of my sanity. If I don't make any art, write, or play music for an extended period I become a miserable, grumpy, argumentative twat whose topics of conversation range from complaining about the daily minutia of his job to complaining about the broader concept of work in general. Ask my wife. At the same time, I've never been fully convinced that wether I do these things or not really matters to anyone but me (and I guess those who have to put up with me). This may explain why I teach English to Japanese kids instead of give interviews to Art Forum. But if the idea that it is at least essential to my well being and my purpose for having been born slips into the background, overwhelmed by work, home ownership, child rearing, or one of a million other things that could (maybe should) draw my focus, I will feel nothing but regret.
That being said, and much to my surprise, I started a band. The handful of songs we have are made up of unused, recycled, and semi forgotten riffs from my past. It feels like cheating, not writing anything new but as my teacher said, I have some perfectly good ideas already and they just need to be explored deeper. I've rearranged some songs I wrote a while back to better suit the current band dynamics and I'm leaving the lyrics and melody up to the singer (For now. But I won't be surprised if my new collaborative bent gives way to my old tyrannical tendencies. After all my ideas are always best so why not use them?) As usual, naming the band is the first order of business, and after much discussion my candidate won out. A to the Q.
Is the passion still there? Will it exhilarate or merely tire? Has the belly fire gone out? Or worst of all, am I just a guy with some interesting hobbies?
I have to say, I tend to think the whole idea that you have your best most original ideas in your early 20's is a bit of a crock, it's a bit lazy no ? What, do you hit 25 and give up on yourself ? Personally, I was really a moron in my early 20's (i think I'm less so now, you may disagree). I just can't accept that I was at my intellectual and creative peak back then.
ReplyDeleteWith that said, I'm very happy you're starting a new band and there's nothing wrong with fleshing out some old classics. The Whereabouts just re-recorded Anyone I Want, which was on the very first demo we ever recorded back in 1994. We've also recorded Ain't my City, and to use a popular and useful French expression, it sounds like a ton of bricks. But there's also some new classics in there, you will not be disappointed.
All that to say, write song new songs !!!
I think what I was trying to say was not that you do your best work in your early twenties, that you write your best songs or paint your best pictures etc. But that you discover the broader themes that will dominate what you do throughout your creative life. Not a bad thing really. I'm sure that what you hope to express with your music and the basic way you hope to express it hasn't drastically changed since your twenties. The approach may have altered slightly and a maturity of sorts (a non-moronification if you will) has crept in but the core hasn't changed.
ReplyDeleteI've just been trying to convince myself that it's perfectly fine to keep going back to the well.I was fighting the feeling that I'm rehashing, or treading on worn ground.I want to be sure not to simply do a less urgent and less passionate version of my younger self. I guess I came off a bit more negative than I had hoped. Not the first time.
I think there's some truth to the theory about a creative peak in the early 20's. There are so many examples to prove it, so many bands with great 1st and 2nd albums and then a drop-off. Exceptions are rare. The best can keep coming up with good songs but not necessarily 10 or 12 great ones every year or so.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, in my opinion it helps to take a long break. I found that from 20 to 25, I had songs coming out my arse. I was writing non-stop, fresh ideas coming through all the time. After a while the creative pace decreases. You reach a point when you really want to come up with a new batch of songs and you're forcing it. As a result, with time you realize those songs are not as good. Overthinking might have something to do with it. It becomes less spontaneous.
I took a long break in recent years, perhaps too much of a break. To the point where my guitar skills deteriorated. I'm doing guitar rehab right now. But I started writing again last year and there was an explosion of new songs. 10 of them. That hadn't happened since my early 20's.
I would be curious to hear from Drew on this. Does he still feel he has the magic? Does it come back now and then? Is it ever the same as when you're 20-something and that fountain of creativity is just overflowing?
Wow..am I late on my comments! First off, it's cool to start a new band. At the very LEAST it's an interesting hobby. The best choice I ever made in my life was to learn how to play music. I've made so many friends and had such a good (or at least interesting) time doing it. Any kind of creativity whether music/writing/painting adds a lot to your life and makes you use all parts of your brain. When it's really good you forget yourself and operate on a more rewarding and less self-conscious level. As to Dan's question. I feel the creativity level is less now than in the past, but I also have faith it's still there. Just more rare. And when the lightning strikes, there's nothing better.
ReplyDeleteA to the Q is a great band name.