My art is ugly I think. Whenever I write songs truly from the heart, the lyrics are often accompanied by a frantic, shrieking sort of strumming across my guitar strings, eyes shut, face winced as the words tumble out of me.

It’s bit much to experience, I’m sure - and that’s why almost no one has. Songwriting is the purest and most vulnerable practice of self-expression for me. Insecurity pervades and therefore it must be done in isolation.

But after years and years of shutting it in - I recently made the decision to push the boulder over the hill and start recording and sharing my original songs. Each post ensues a flurry of emotion - somewhere between generational gratification and near-death levels of embarrassment. I watch the videos back, recognizing the wincing face, before chucking my phone across the room and burying my face in a pillow.

”Why do I always shut my eyes like that when I sing? God I wish I had a less-cringey singing face!!”

And so each time I record, I become more cognizant of the visual result, and therefore, a bit more detached from the song itself. I consider the camera angles, the lighting, how the video will be color-graded. I worry about each note-slip, each strum inconsistency.

I hear them as I’m performing… because that’s just it: i’m performing now. I’m no longer writing in my room alone for myself. And no matter the audience size, even an audience of one makes the diffrence.

I look back at my works now and see them differently. Once perfectly preserved in an airtight container of naive self-confidence - I now watch the words I sing oxidize in the open air, eventually eroding away.

I’m not as good as I thought I was; it’s 100% a fact, I’m genuinely not. It took me about a week of pity-parties before accepting that it’s actually quite normal, even an exciting revelation.

Because now that I have an accurate assessment of my depth as a songwriter and musician, I can actually get better. When I was just serenading myself with ears tuned optimistically to my vision, there was no way for me to critique my own work. It was mine, and it was perfect.

It’s obviously been extremely painful to let that go: to redefine the ugliness that characterized my work as a lack of guitar-playing, singing, and song-writing experience rather than just a complete rawness.

But I do still wonder if it’s entirely a good thing: this pressure to make my art more ‘beautiful.’ An understanding that if it is not palatable to others, I won’t go anywhere as an artist. Especially when it feels unnatural; hunched into a corner of my room because it has the most aesthetic backdrop, waiting for a week to record until I can use my friend’s nice camera, worrying about that wincey face of mine when it’s the best indicator I have that the words I sing are coming directly from the heart…

I think there is a happy medium through practice though; sharpening my skills as a singer and guitar player results in more beautiful melodies that come to me naturally. The skills sit in the background, waiting to be brought to life with an organic idea. But where does the bit stop?

After taking the leap to “perform”, I discovered the pressure to “brand” my work in some way. To have some kind of remarkable or recognizable aesthetic that accompanies each song… naturally of course.

But that’s been very difficult for me to find; my songs are what they are and when I try to “turn the into something”, it just feel wrong.

This is an ongoing quandry for me. And at the peak of frustration, I did what I always do: I wrote a song about it. This is “lipstick on a pig”.

Right now, I don’t know how to present myself as I am: I just am, and am also presenting myself. Is that “enough”? Am I an “artist” yet? I don’t yet know and that scares me.

But as with most things that scare me, I’m sure one day I will appreciate and enjoy the idea of developing an aesthetic/artist project. Or maybe I’ll just find a way to transcend my thought-process beyond “actively developing an aesthetic” and just tell my story, the way I really am, visually. Maybe it’s as simple as that, and just takes time.

So I’ll throw my hat the ring, again and again and again, trying as much as possible to stay true.



lyrics:

putting lipstick on a pig
give myself an aesthetic
i’m so tired of it

i don’t what you want to see
but I’m certain that it’s not me
nobody wants to talk about it

and we all do
crazy things
to feel like
human beings

i’m susceptible

to a hot rage in my skull
i often let it unfold

i always regret it

when I pay 20 bucks
for a lipstick
to keep my lips shut

i just tolerate it

putting lipstick on a pig
they’ll sue me for testing it
I think I’ll settle
down

think I’ll settle down
think I’ll settle out