March ‘23: New Song
“One Small Thing”
Prompt: feet of clay, heart of stone
Submission of Member: Jeff C
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It came up recently during a stream that there hadn’t been a new “Lex Land” ballad in a good while.
There are likely plenty of reasons for that, and I can list a few for you.
Between us I feel like my jazz ballad writing reached a pinnacle with “I Know It Now” after years of writing fairly decent (to me, anyway) jazz ballads. It’s particularly challenging to make these types of songs feel different to one another while performing solo, and, frankly, I usually only have room/time for one or two ballads in any given set anyway, and I have an embarrassment of riches to draw from where cover songs are concerned, let alone any original songs I’ve added to the canon.
Usually for “Lex Land” I have other “needs” to fulfill for a well-rounded set - more uptempo numbers, more latin-feel, more songs that take a more positive/hopeful approach. Different lyrical content. For most of my songwriting life of about 20 years and some change, I’ve had plenty of opportunity to write songs about heartbreak and grief, particularly when it comes to romance. Not only have I found myself in a loving and supportive long-term monogamous relationship with a great person, but I also have two other projects I write for, and One Big Dark Room is an excellent vehicle for likely any/all despair and desolation songs I’ve got left in me (at least for a while, and until whatever great bereavement befalls me next, because, as we all know but try to forget, there are bound to be more as long as we’re drawing breath). And the One Big Dark Room songs can be as stripped down, short, weird, angsty, or… “whatever” as I want them to be. Which is freeing from a creative standpoint, because for a song to fit in the LL catalog it needs to be much more intentionally crafted.
Thus, the more serious “Lex Land” songs, at least for the current iteration of the project, require more deftness. It’s a little more challenging to come up with ways to express a deeper experience cathartically while “conforming” to structure, phrases, and harmony that are relatable and convey that feeling of “timelessness.” Fortunately I’m self-obsessed enough, and obsessed with this genre enough, to take that on, although with what resulting success or meaning, I’m not quite sure.
So “One Small Thing” is my attempt to reason with my inner mean girl, about figuring out how to love myself, even when I’ve convinced myself I can’t think of or observe a single redeeming quality. I’m nervous to even mention this topic because of the feelings and comments/responses it could unwittingly provoke, but my assumption is that most of us likely feel this way about ourselves occasionally (if you don’t, then I am envious and you clearly have something figured out), and the narrator (the subject-voice of this song) is the little internal jiminy-cricket trying to bring the whole (the object, so to speak, of the song, but who also happens to be the subject’s self) closer to the light.
I thought it somewhat clever of me to intentionally lead the casual listener into thinking that the song is about a romantic relationship ending, the narrator a lovesick lost-cause being unexpectedly abandoned by someone that they are likely incompatible with, or someone that just isn’t very nice! But (and here I am making assumptions again) haven’t many of us been there, too? Trying to convince someone that never appreciated us to begin with to just “"give us a chance” at the last hour?
It’s a little reminder that we are worthy of love and of existing and taking up space, even if/when we fuck up. Yes, life is hard and mistakes are made, and we have to live ever-after in the shadow of the present actions we take. There’s a little bad in all of us, but a little good in all of us too. So we have to try to let the good grow and make peace with the rest.
That’s what I’m shooting for, anyway. I’m far from acceptance but little exercises of affirmation like this, I think, should help. Hope it might help you too.
There’s always room for more song prompts in the database - please submit some here.
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