7 February 2002
Avoiding the Unfinished

A new song has taken up residence in my head. It's in a dangerous state. No lyrics. The entire structure of the song is there: the melody, the chord progressions, even pencil sketches of the arrangement beyond the piano and vocal parts. This is exactly where the process has fallen apart before, on other songs that began from this direction. It's the challenge of coming up with the words and making them fit...trying to figure out what this music means, what it wants to say, how to translate that into the English language.

It's catchy, at least to me. I keep humming it under my breath. Sometimes when I'm puttering around my room at night I'll pull out the tape recorder where I jotted it down, listening to it again. I think I'm a little afraid of it, or of my own inability to turn it into something good. I wonder what would give me the confidence to at least try.

- VT