Musings on My Music: 2009-August-16 | Selling My Songs: The Emotional Dilemma

By Martie Hevia | Blue Beach Song™

My songs are my life through my prism. I have been writing songs my whole life, but I started writing them down sometime around kindergarten. The sky is blue, the grass is green… nice melody, but perhaps not really worth jotting down. Sometime around the age of seven the songs became more introspective and reflective of my life experiences and the world I saw; a world that did not always make sense.

My songs and my poetry are like journals of my life, and as such, I never wanted to share them with anyone – they were too personal. The mere idea of playing my songs for someone was tantamount in my mind to making a diary public. Over the years and decades my songs documented more and more of my life, becoming outlets of expression and observation, joy and pain, love found and love lost, and all the more difficult to share.

Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet. -Plato

The greatest source of inspiration, unfortunately, always seemed to be love lost. There are too many songs about love lost. Who wants to listen to a bunch of sad songs? Perhaps no one, but I am at a point in my life where I feel more comfortable with the idea of sharing my songs, driven there by the hope that perhaps my songs will be a source of comfort to others, while being a source of income for me.

There is something unsavory about the idea of selling my songs. It feels like I am contemplating selling my children or corrupting them somehow. And there is a certain amount of ego necessary to even begin to think that anyone would want to buy something you created with your heart and soul. To have people reject something so personal, so intimate, so much a piece of you, wow, that requires a certain kind of bravery that I am not sure I have. Without a thought I could run into a burning building to save someone’s life, but can I sell one of my songs?

Hmmm… that is a tough question.

Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything. -Plato

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