I don’t want to write a stupid love song.
Or at least that’s my current mood.
The problem is, my music partner Matt Siegel—the other half of Red Sky River—and I agreed to share some original love songs in February…which is fast approaching. The only issue? I don’t really have many love songs. And the ones I do have are sad. I have a lot of half-written stuff, too—again, mostly sad. Nothing happy.
Which begs the question: how on God’s green earth does someone who loves romantic poetry and has an insatiable appetite for cheesy Hallmark movies not have more love songs?
In my experience, what you write about (or don’t write about) is often a reflection of what you’re willing to believe is possible for your life—or what you’re willing to share about it.
Who am I to talk to anyone about love?
And on the flip side…who am I not to?
Don’t I have firsthand experience about what doesn’t work? Don’t I at least know what love is NOT?
Frankly, love didn’t have a whole lot to do with it—at least not in the way you would think. (Cue Tina Turner: What’s love got to do, got to do with it…) I have loved many people, and they have loved me in the ways we were capable of at the time.
I don’t think any of my failed relationships mean I’m bad at love.
(Don’t you hate how all those cliché phrases are actually really true?)
A girlfriend told me once that I shouldn’t feel bad about my romantic past. One of the things she admired about me was my optimism and how I loved big. And that’s partially true. Looking back, I’m not always sure what was loving big and what was throwing myself into another person’s orbit and calling it love.
So here I am, back to the infuriating task of writing a love song, stuck in my persistent existential crisis over whether I’m even qualified to do such a thing.
What do I normally do when a subject feels hard and scary?
I make lists.
I love me a good list! It gets my brain going when it needs a little kick start. In the last few days I’ve written lists for “things that are blue” and “things that are dangerous.” So it occurred to me…what if I made lists about love?
- Things that look like love
- Things love could be
- Things that are NOT love
- Things I love about love
Maybe these lists could get me there. Or at the very least, help me consider that maybe I know more than I think.
P.S. – I do have a book that includes some love poems already it is called “Every Heart has a Song: Poems of Love and Longing“
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