The pains of letting go... aka it'll never be good enough for, well, just me, I guess...

I love her so much, but she's not mine to love anymore...  It's over and she's (almost) gone...

I'm sure you've heard this before, but one of the hardest things for an artist to do is to let go of what they've been working on and putting all their time, energy and (sometimes) money into; in my case, that taking the form of an album.  One of the downfalls of creating music is that it'll never is good enough.  Nothing is ever as beautiful as the music in my own head.  The vision I have never matches the eventual sounds I hear.  It's a very common problem.  Hardly anyone I know who has made an album has ever been happy with it.  You get a lot of "I'm satisfied" but rarely happy.  I think it was Thom Yorke who said eventually they'll be able to plug a cable into the back of your head and then, finally, you'll be able to hear, purely and gloriously, what he is actually trying to create.  And if Thom Yorke isn't satisfied with what he's created, God help the rest of us fucks.

There's something terrifying yet enthralling about releasing a record.  You've worked so fucking hard for months, sometimes years, to get your music to this point.  The hundreds of shows, the countless hours spent rehearsing and working on your craft, the arguments, the late nights, the six hour drives for the forty-five minute shows, the time not spent with your family, friends, girlfriends, whomever, the depression, the doubt, the fear of wasting your whole life for some insane ideal existence that more than likely wouldn't make you any happier than you are at this very moment, the guilt of leaving your family, your eleven year old brother who could've used a little more male guidance but turned out just fine anyways (maybe he didn't need it or maybe he's just that fucking awesome to turn out as fucking awesome as he did), to head West (and then East and then West again and then back East and finally West again, for maybe the last time but probably not) to try and make a living playing music although I couldn't sing and I could barely play guitar; all of that just to make this fucking record.  My whole life is in this album.  All the love and hope and faith and fear I've ever known.  It's all there, for people to take in and experience.  It's me, all of me.  So, naturally I want it to be the best possible version of itself.  I want it to be amazing and beautiful.  I desperately want it to be the way I hear it in my head, untouched and unmarred by human hands.  But, unfortunately, and just like me, it won't be perfect.  It won't sound like I always dreamed it could.  I don't sound like I always dreamed I would (a combination of awesome with Robert Plant on vocals on Jimi Hendrix on guitar).  It cannot exist untouched or unmarred by human hands.  Humans have to be involved.  I have to rely on good ol' unreliable humans, including, and especially, myself.  You're always chasing something unattainable.  A sound that can't exist until someone makes it exist, but, in doing so, will degrade its purity and, therefore, its quality.  I could forever keep my music to myself, wonderful and perfect, but that would serve no purpose.  So, eventually you must commit it to tape (in this case literally to tape), accept it imperfectness and then let it go out into the world.  Once it's out, it's no longer yours.  It's very similar to a child.  You create it, work on it, make it the best you possibly can and then let it go and hope for the best, (un)confident you did the best you could.

Now, to be sure, one of the best things about having Asperger's is that I don't care about other people's feelings or reactions the way most people would.  In music, or art in general, this is a huge boon, and the reason I think many great artists have a touch of the autism.  This is where I have the advantage over many of my fellow musicians.  You see, I'm not worried about what other people will think about my album.  The reason releasing it is terrifying yet enthralling is that it will never live up to my standards, and those are the only ones I care about.  I want to be happy with it thirty years from now, should I live that long.  If people don't like it, fuck them, it's their loss.  I know my upcoming album ("In My Youth, I'm Getting Old...") is great and tells the stories we need more of:  human stories.  Too many songs are about falling in and out of love, mostly superficially as well.  That's the fucking easy part.  Anyone can fall in and out of love, sometimes multiple times a day.  These songs are about that whole fucking middle bit where you're trying to decide how much you want to let someone into your life and heart, whether this is just a temporary rough patch or the end, whether you should suck it up for the kids or move on so the kids don't have to deal with it, whether this marriage will be OK or is ruining our lives, whether I'm looking for reasons to leave instead of seeing the reasons to stay, whether we keep fighting or just say "fuck it" and go dancing, whether I'm too scared or not scared enough of this relationship, and on and on.  That's where the fucking meat and potatoes is.  The falling in and out of love is ten to twenty percent of the relationship experience.  The bulk resides in all the other shit.  That's where "In My Youth, I'm Getting Old..." lives.  They say write what you know, so that's what I fucking did.  My friends and I are/were in our mid to late twenties and going through the round of divorces and breakups and struggles of whether to stay together or cut our losses and move on before it's too late, that start to happen around this time.  No one fucking knows who they are when they are eighteen to twenty, so to commit to someone long-term at that time is more likely to fail than succeed; and we definitely didn't help the success rate.  But, out of that came the beginnings of these songs and the vision for the album.  Sometimes it's better to go out dancing, forget about everything for a night and just live to fight another day.  Sometimes you just can't.   Somewhere in the middle is where we spend a lot of our days.  I needed these songs.  I doubt I'm alone...

I'm at the finishing stages with "In My Youth, I'm Getting Old..."  She's about to be out of my hands and into yours.  Treat her well.  It wasn't easy to get her here, believe me.  Someday I'll tell the whole story, but for now just know I love her and always will.  I gave her my best and I hope it was enough...