This is a clip of my song “On Things”
Its a juxtaposition of the live version, as well as the pre-final mix. Get it? Cool, cool.
I’ve written elsewhere that this song is about “the guilt that comes with having a passion that doesn’t fit into societies’ expectations" and yes that is true.
But what is truer is that this song is about mom guilt. Eeep!
My internal thought stream continues to assure me that songs about mom guilt are completely unappealing and unmarketable so I have fear around using that phrase. Nevertheless, I am sending it out into the world as an offering and it will go where it wants to.
And without further ado, here’s the story…
One night I went to an open mic. It was my first time at this particular open mic and it was great, everyone was very inspiring, but it took a lot longer than I expected. I got home later than I thought I would and everyone in my house was mad at me. Yay!
I missed bath time and bed time, and my chronically over-worked at work husband was harried and frustrated. I felt like a selfish, bad person for having the audacity to leave my family to spend time doing a thing that I loved, but that was not serving anyone else.
“You don’t get to have ‘a thing,’” I thought. You are a mom of two small kids, you don’t have time to have ‘a thing.’
It’s intermission for your life. Have several seats.
And thats what inspired the song. It’s written largely from the perspective of that voice, my (very loud and self-critical) internal thought stream that I mentioned earlier.
I wrote the song months ago and there’s been many music nights since. I wish I could say the guilt has cooled off but it has not. For instance, my band has a show next Saturday and I’m having to move mountains to find time to rehearse…
I could hire a babysitter. [Insert guilt about spending money.] I could call grandma. [Insert guilt about taking advantage of family.] I could ask my husband to cancel his long-scheduled work meeting. [Insert guilt about jeopardizing husband’s professional aspirations]. And of course, the big undercurrent to all of this:
[INSERT GUILT ABOUT ACTIVELY CHOOSING A SILLY LITTLE HOBBY THING OVER YOUR OWN CHILDREN YOU SELFISH, UNGRATEFUL AND VERY, VERY BAD MOTHER!]
As you might be able to glean, somewhere I internalized that I needed to do everything myself, and if I didn’t I was failing everyone around me.
BUT I know that if I didn’t make time for “silly little hobby things”, I’d be failing myself.
I just try to balance my failures. Divvy them up amongst the crowd, you know.
So uplifting, right?!
Gosh. I feel great.
Anyway, here’s the damn song. It was produced and recorded entirely in my basement. I’m hoping to redo it with a proper studio at some point to be determined.