A Songwriter's Plight

Hey lovely! Sorry that this is (obviously) late, and not on a Friday, and I know... I'm a terrible person. My bad, brah. Maybe you'll forgive me?

ANYWAYS :) A Songwriter's Plight:

When the majority of people hear a hit song on the radio, they consider the lyrics. They consider, who  sings the song, they consider what the song is about, and in cases like Taylor Swifts, they worry more about who the song is about than who actually, you know, wrote it.
And that's the dangerous, treacherous, petrifying plight of the songwriter.
It's enough to make me want to lock my three (yes... three) books of lyrics in a cellar, along with every recording of my songs ever, and swear everyone who's ever heard one to secrecy, and make sure no one ever knows who any of them were about. It's enough to make me consider limiting my audience to the four walls of my bedroom, my parents (because it's inevitable that when I sing into a microphone anywhere in my house that they will hear whatever angst-filled piece I've written most recently), and my best friend, Lizmilton. It's enough to stomp out the daydreams I have of performing on stages across the world, and make me stop trying to make those a reality.
But the thing about songwriting is it's addicting, and I know that I cannot stop.
I write songs the way that a writer journals- constantly, daily, and never without a personal aspect. I tried to keep a diary for years, but what I've found works better is setting my life to music. This confines me to a three-and-a-half-to-five minute space in which I can detail what's going on. Thus I am forced to express the main ideas in broader terms, and I have to make every line, every word count. Songwriters are meticulous and deliberate in the words that they choose-- each approaches a song differently, each edits a song differently, and each has their own Dictionary of Denotation. It's in whether or not a writer uses "house" or "home,"what rhyme scheme they choose, and what approach they take. Phrasing lyrically, with breathing, and with melody: the song I write about love isn't the song Taylor Swift would write, even if the lyrics nearly matched. It's the reason some songs have a weak line or two in my mind. I would change a part here or there, however what I know is that even if I think my changes would improve the song, the words the artist chose are the ones that he or she meant. And I have to respect that.
One of my counselors at camp brought up something very interesting. He told me that he doesn't care what the song says, or what the words try to build up-- what he's concerned with is how it makes him feel (i.e. he would listen to (gulp) Blurred Lines, because it makes him feel something, but he doesn't agree with what the lyrics say). I understand, however, I don't agree. What the lyrics say are what the audience remembers, and writes on their arms, and tattoos on various body parts. It's how you SAY the emotion the song makes the listener FEEL.
That being said, the songs I write are so specific and are intensely emotional. I have never written a song I am not 100% into, 100% abut myself, 100% about what I've been through. And so it's hard to premier songs to my friends that are about people they know, knowing full well that they might figure out who it is about. And because I write about strong emotions, those songs are really telling as to what what happened. Keeping in mind that I don't scream my personal life through the halls, there are events, shall we say, in my life that my friends don't know about.
I used to be afraid of this and fearful of this, however at this point I just find it so hard to give a shit like at all. I want to keep these secrets to myself. However, what I do know is what I have to say relates to other people, and that's my goal, after all.
I work so hard on all of these songs, and I wish that I could be playing them everywhere all the time everyday. If only! SO the plight of a songwriter is that each song is the most personal thing ever. And no one cares about WHO wrote it, it's who it's ABOUT.
Everyone in my life is fair game, good or bad. And no one really knows who the song is about unless I tell them. SO moral of the story: your speculation is just that-- speculation.