Perhaps I secretly long for the dark side.
Perhaps !
But the dark side is an inescapable part of human nature. We can sometimes control it, we rarely master it and it can be so difficult to predict it's appearing.....
I find writing about darker characters/themes is simply more interesting. I've never written a love song - I consider that too easy a target.
I've actually written lots of songs I'd describe as love songs, but not in any kind of conventional sense, certainly not one on one love songs. The only two I can think of that even remotely come near that description both ended up far from what they started as ! The first one {"Indoors and out"} began while I was at the start of a relationship and it was very loving and full of hope flavoured with mystery. But I never got around to finishing it up until that relationship had died a gruesome death ! So the second section is really dark, reflecting the period that "wasn't nice at all"
.
All I can say is that I was young........Ok, younger.......
The second one {"Cartifantarti"} is a lot more recent. I'd been married for about 13 years by this time and one day it occurred to me that I'd never written anything overtly lovey~dovey about my wife so I thought I'd try one of those kinds of songs and started off writing in that vein as I had a few stray phrases........but it was impossible for me to force it and it turned into a song saying that it was for
us to determine the direction of our lives, how we look, how we bring up our kids etc, not some stupid celebrity or celeb culture or some biblical interpretation mediated via Western, West Indian or African cultures or our friends and families. It turned into a right old "no one is going to tell us what to do and if you choose to be influenced by outside forces you and I are going to butt heads" kind of song. Charming ! Full of challenge but thankfully not approaching invective.
For me personally, dark songs are easier to write only because when I'm in a somber mood, I'm in more of the concentrated and pensive state of mind needed to patiently write and record music.
This is such a strong point.
I guess because we're constantly surrounded by the melancholy, the negative, the dark, it's so much easier to reflect on if one is a more reflective person. Which is not to say that bright things require less depth of thought. If I've spent hours having a great time with my kids though, I'm a lot less likely in the immediate aftermath to still myself, sit down and write a song about an axe wielding homicidal maniac.
Maybe tomorrow.....
I remember years ago, when my wife would point out that I had a tendency to pick up on the things that were wrong or bad and didn't comment on the good things {which I didn't think was actually true and I'd point out positive things I had commented on}, I'd say to her that the good things pretty much went without saying because they're already good. They don't need adjusting.
when I sit down and try to put pen to paper creating a bright song about how ecstatic I am and how great life is, I can't help but feel like a pompous douche
While I wouldn't go quite that far, I can so identify with that.
I remember around the time I bought my first serious recording equipment, I wanted to write songs for the church I was with at the time to sings, songs that were based in reality, that expressed the joy of our situation, but which also took into account that this life is no waltz on a well paid stage. I tried and tried to come up with joyous stuff but I found that I simply could not turn it on and off and whatever I'd say was always tempered with the underlying realities of life. Which is not to say that for me the joys of God ain't real, they certainly are, but that doesn't mean in the midst of hassles, put on the blinkers and pretend they're not there ~ which I find a lot of christian songs do.
There's definitely a place for expressing joy, happiness and ecstasy in songs though, yet the irony ever remains that many of the greatest and most impacting "happy" love songs were written by people who, at the time, were in the pits of despair.
if you will keep thinking about the past happenings then it would be tough to get out of those thing and make a fresh start again
I can see what you mean and to a large extent, I agree.
But paradoxically, I also disagree. Over the years, I've written a number of songs that come from a peculiar view in that, I put myself back in the mind that I had
at the period I'm writing about. So I can express all the passion or sarcasm or anger or bitterness or defeat or helplessness or immaturity or innocence or wonder that I felt at that time and express it with strength {and sometimes, exaggerated strength}.......even though I've long since passed the period and am no longer influenced by or under whatever feelings I may have had.
Funnily enough, I was thinking about one this morning that I wrote in the late 90s. It's from the perspective of a person who has been impacted by God and has come to terms with the things and people they felt had tried to drag them under in the past and they've forgiven and are no longer weighed down. But they're thinking about the past and what happened to them and they're remembering how it felt with clarity and are able to feel it intensely and with real heat, but without any malice.
You wouldn't believe it from some of the lines though !!
