I learned something last night. I played a gig at White Eagle Saloon, a nice old venue with vintage rugs draped everywhere and exposed brick walls. Despite the fact that there were so few people there, or maybe because of it, I had a very valuable experience. I haven’t played live in a few months, having spent every free hour recently recording a new batch of songs. So when I went to play this gig, I had sort of a fresh perspective on my own music, and I gotta tell ya, it’s kinda sad!

Well, it’s not all sad… But there are a fair few sad songs. That’s partly why my last EP was mainly instrumental songs, because when I start singing, it gets dark real fast. But here’s what I learned. I’m not fuelled by that dark energy any more (even though the universe’s expansion might still be). My life has changed significantly since I wrote some of those songs, and for the better. I’m driven now by an energy of thoughts, questions, nature, visions, images, sounds, early morning streets, true love, struggle, conflict, hope, innocence, laughter, silliness. Sadness is still there too, but not all the time.

It used to be that when I felt down, I would play music. So I played a lot, and wrote a lot. That’s where I got almost all of my inspiration from. Recently, I’ve found myself coming out of a dry period creatively where I wasn’t writing as much, because I wasn’t feeling that way as much. Although, every now and then I would get the blues, and I would write a song, guaranteed. But that’s not sustainable for me, and more importantly, it’s just not fun.

A friend asked me after the show yesterday if I enjoyed it, and I said “Yeah, sorta, I wasn’t really raised to get on stage and enjoy myself. I was raised to get on stage and do a good job.” It was only several hours after I had said it that I realised just how true it really was, and just how paradoxical.