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What’s that song about? That is a question that I’m sure a lot of songwriters and bands get asked pretty frequently. I am always torn on how to answer. On one hand, I love to share my thoughts and ideas with folks. I am proud of the songs that we have created – they are like my babies. I am a proud Papa that has watched them grow from a small riff to an idea to a full-fledged song, so that someone even cares what its about means that it has made some sort of impact on someone.
On the other hand, I hate to project my ideas or thoughts on to what somebody else may get from the song. Some lyrics could be interpreted completely differently than I ever mean them and that is a BEAUTIFUL thing, and could be important to someone. It could touch someone for completely different reasons or remind them of something very specific that I had no idea about when I was writing the song. The last thing I would want to do is ruin that experience or that connection for someone else. We are making music to make people happy… or sad or angry or wistful. Whatever emotions we can evoke with a song, heck, that’s a good thing.
So what do I do? Hmmmm, I guess it just depends on the song. I do like writing stories or making up silly fictional characters in a lot of
my songs. I guess if its one of those, I am always happy to share my thoughts and the meaning behind various lyrics. Ideally, these are all pretty straight forward, anyway, so probably not the songs I get the bulk of those questions about. It’s usually the other, more abstract songs. In the end, I guess it may just depend on when you catch me and the context of the conversation. I am probably happy to chat with you about it, but don’t be surprised if I’m just as interested to know what the song means to YOU!