Muse Drives Me Mad

I have material now.  It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to say that.  I think my songwriting fell off when I realized that I had never experienced true pain or loss.  Until the arm incident, I had never even been to the hospital.  I was always very healthy, and so were the members of my family.  I was never hungry.  I may have had no money, but I always had something to eat.  I’ve always been a calm, easy-going, happy person.  Then everything flipped.

Still, I was never really worried.  I started booking music gigs, and, even though I look like something out of a circus, I was making some friends.  Things had changed, but they really weren’t all that different.

Then I moved here.  Here I have no money.  Here I have no health insurance (of course, I lost my health insurance before I moved here, but it’s still a fact of my life right now, whether I can blame New York or not).  Here I have no family, no friends, and no job.  But, somehow, I have a muse.

I feel compelled to write.  That feels great, but I can’t get anything down on paper.  I can hardly pluck out something that doesn’t sound played out.

I’m listening to a lot of Kevin Barnes’s amazing of Montreal albums, including the newest one which was released on CD, vinyl, T-shirt, tote bag, and several other items.  Skeletal Lamping is very sexy.  I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed listening to sexy music, but I’m really enjoying this, and there’s no denying it:  the new of Montreal album in ‘boneriffic.’  But face it, Barnes’s entire discography is completely jaw-dropping, and of Montreal has evolved over the years in a way that hardly any band besides the Beatles has ever been able to evolve.

How do I do that?  How do I translate this new muse into something timely?  Honestly, I feel like a complete idiot.  I always considered myself a smart, progressive musician, but I don’t know if I can really cut it.  Now that I’m up here, I don’t know if I can create something with the potential to really shake up the industry.  I could go back to Baton Rouge, or go somewhere where the price of living is even cheaper, but if I’m here, I’m in the blood stream of it.  I want to do something amazing.  If I didn’t want to do something amazing, I could have stayed in the South.

Until I get started on some new songs, I guess I’ll have to be kept company by the genius of others.