Well, I never stopped writing music. I'm just writing a different kind of music now. I'm writing instrumental music and thematic music ... I stopped writing songs back in the early '90s. I'm not really interested in songwriting these days ...I think I can understand where Joel is coming from. He wrote lyrics prolifically for around three decades. At some point, maybe you run out of new ideas. Maybe you feel you've said everything you needed to say.
Sometimes I wonder if I'll get to that point.
I hope not. Or if I do, I hope I find another outlet, as Joel has. Here's why.
I feel different when I'm writing. Life continues to dole out its usual frustrations, but there's a buffer between them and me. I have more compelling things to think about, like whether I should stick a certain phrase in the first or second verse, and what I can rhyme with "memorized."
I'm making it sound like songwriting is nothing more than an excellent distraction, and that's not quite right. It is an excellent distraction, but there's something else going on too.
When I write songs, I feel like I'm bigger than my problems.
Bigger. Better. Above.
It doesn't matter how many songs I've already brought into the world. I'm always happiest when I've got something in progress.
