Originally Posted By: Westside Steve
Nobody really cares about your personal life so if you are writing for therapy try to remember first and foremost you need to connect with an audience if you hope to be successful.


That's the key, Steve. Connecting. Writing about something in your life that has happened to everybody. Everybody has someone in their life that was "the one that got away". That is track 3 on my upcoming CD, "The One That Got Away". Everybody has had someone in their life that they wanted so badly but the feeling wasn't mutual. You know who that person is in MY life, and it ended up that I was wasting my time pursuing her. That is "Wasting My Time", track 10 on my upcoming CD.Many people have been through something life changing, making them understand that the old chestnut about not being guaranteed a tomorrow is really true. That is "Second Chance", track 4 on my upcoming CD. Many people, having lost that special person, wonder what they might do different if they had the chance to do it all again. That is "Do It All Again", track 8 on my upcoming CD.

By now you know that rambling was making a point that if you write songs about things that are common to almost everybody, they will connect. You are a good songwriter, and I LOVED playing your songs! Your lyrics on those songs DO connect with the crowd. And that's why I loved playing them. I used to get teary eyed as I sang the lyrics to "All The Fools" in my head while we played it. That is a beautiful, relatable story in that lyric. That is what "connecting" is about. Everybody in that room lost somebody at some point in their life. And IMHO, that is what songwriting is about, just like you said, connecting to the listeners.

I do NOT put down cover players, though a lot of people think I do. It just isn't what I want to do, so I don't do it. Maybe I would if I had to perform for a living as my sole source of income, but I would really hate that, and I don't want to hate my job. I am also uncomfortable being around people who can't control their alcohol intake, given my past, (That would be "Many Years Ago", a song about when I quit drinking. Track 9 on my upcoming CD.) so I avoid bars, and the drunken people in them, and don't want to play in bars. Also why I rarely even GO to bars. I got tired of explaining why I drink cranberry and soda a long time ago. People look at me like I am from another planet when I don't order the $9 martini or the $6 craft beer. I just don't drink. Period. Just like I prefer to not play copy music.

As a wise Irish guy told me not long ago over on The Book Of Face, the show must go on.

I am using the new 1040XTRAEZ form this year. It has just 2 lines.

1. How much did you make in 2023?
2. Send it to us.