The gift of song-writing, a reflection

A few weeks ago, I shared some of these thoughts about song-writing in a concert and I was asked by someone to write them down....that these thoughts needed to be shared with other artists.  

So, here they are.....

The gift of song-writing, a reflection

Songwriting is often a solitary experience.  

It is something you do when no one else is around, in the quiet places of your heart.  

And one day the song is so powerful in you that you dare to share it with one other person.  

And you expose your soul.

To sing your song for one other person is to expose your heart and you don’t know what to expect.  

And so you share it, and then you want to run really fast in the opposite direction.

Will the other person run away too?  

Because it is so terrible?

Will they be indifferent?

Will they laugh?

Will they cry?

What will their response be? – that is what you are first concerned with – what is their response?

But as you grow as an artist and deepen, something happens inside you 

and you know that to NOT WRITE, 

something in you will die.

You get to a point, where to write and to compose – is to live.

It is part of choosing life, it is part of why you are here on this earth and you are compelled to write and if you don’t , a part of you will die.

And so, you choose life and it doesn’t really matter any more how people respond…

because you have lived.

And one day, you find yourself sharing these songs and you become surprised

Because people are actually resonating with your songs.  They are in the room and singing with you.  And one day they tell you that your song has become their song

And you realize that you did not just write your song, you wrote a human song

And we share  our human songs

These are our soul songs

Our human songs

And you’ve been a part of expressing our human story, which resonates with others

This is a gift to you, because it is a way you are to be alive

And it is a gift to them because you help them express their human story in soul language

This is the gift of song-writing.