I’ve always wanted to have a music blog. I've always wanted to have my own radio program. I’ve always wanted to write insightful reviews of albums and share the profound ways in which music has touched my life. I’ve always wanted to recommend songs that I love and through that have some sliver of an effect on other people. I’ve always wanted to feel like I really
know music, and part of knowing music is expressing that knowledge. Each time I make an attempt, however, my writing feels forced and is thoroughly riddled with clichés and unfortunate word choice. I want so badly to write well that I end up sabotaging myself by trying too hard or I become frustrated and don’t write anything at all.
It’s not surprising then, that for quite some time I’ve been toying with the idea of starting up a journal. I suppose the only thing that’s really stopped me up until now is, of course, the fear that it won’t be something people feel inclined to read. And why should they? I’m not a terrifically interesting person, I don’t listen to terrifically interesting music, and I don’t have terrifically interesting things to say. And on top of all that I’m one wordy motherf
ucker… I am in no way and by no means succinct. In fact I recently had a friend read an essay I’d written and when I asked what he thought he responded simply with “Are you familiar with Occam’s Razor?” I digress.
When I read other members journals I’m quite often blown away by the eloquence of the writing and the evident passion behind most of the posts. This is not likely going to be one of those journals. Consider yourself warned.
The main issue I have when writing about music is that I really just have no idea what to say. I often try to describe the
sound of a song, but it ends up being something along the lines of: “Oh yeah and then the cello comes in. Or wait, is that a violin? Wait, no. Definitely a cello. And I believe that was a Dm you just heard there. Or possibly Am… Or perhaps G? fu
cking hell, just listen to it yourself.” I promise you now I won’t waste (any more of) your time with attempts like that.
I feel like there’s a point somewhere in all of this I’m trying to make, but if I find it I’ll be surprised. I don’t honestly know what I intend to do with this journal. I’m good at talking about myself so it will probably contain personal stories surrounding various albums and a lot of masturbatory word play. Oh and jokes. There will be jokes.
PS- I'm fully aware that I'm terrible about using apostrophes properly. I'M TRYING.
To kick things off I thought I'd post the song I listened to (on repeat) while typing up this mess of an introduction:
This is probably my favorite song from the Kinks. If songs had blood I think this song would be cold-blooded, because it can adapt to all environments and all of my moods. I turn to it when I need cheering up, I turn to it when I feel desperately hopeless, I turn to it when I want to cry but can't, I turn to it when I feel like celebrating. The Kinks are very dear to me, and I think this song could be the soundtrack to many different events and aspects of my life. I would like to call it my omnipresent theme song, but I can't because there's this other song I'm cheating on this song with and I call that song my omnipresent theme song behind this songs back. Don't tell Ray.