The Reason Why I Sing

No, I’m not talking about the Kirk Franklin song…

People sometimes ask me if I listen to my own music. The answer is yes. In fact, the first songs I ever wrote were quite simply songs I wanted to hear that nobody else had written yet. Sounds obvious, right? Though after meeting many composers and songwriters, I was surprised to find not a single one that felt the same. Many of them seemed to be more into the process than the end result. Most of the songwriters I met saw it as a kind of emotional release, which is seldom the case for me. Sometimes I just want to hear songs that don’t exist. I remember as a teenager running around with these sonic images in my head and at first, thinking that they were songs I had heard before. When I couldn’t find them anywhere, I realized they were actually elements from many songs I had heard before thrown together in my mind. So I started writing them down and later recording them. I just wanted to hear them outside of my head for once. Truthfully, it was kind of selfish, and to a certain extent, I remain that way.

There was a shift in my songwriting several years ago. I can’t pinpoint exactly when, but along with it came a change in my philosophy. The catalyst was that more people started to tell me how much they were affected by my performances. It was the kind of feedback that made me feel like what I was doing actually mattered to people, and that maybe I should think about promoting it and sharing it more openly. So here I am today, promoting, blogging, and feeling more driven than ever.