980 history repeats
on making yourself proud
I love seeing someone wearing tangled headphones. It speaks to the desperation of the listener to hear what they want to hear, right now. I used to keep my headphones in the bottom of my purse where they would magically, inevitably turn themselves into a coil of knots. I started tying them up when not in use in a move that felt adult and efficient, but I sort of miss the ritual disentanglement, or choosing to forgo it for one more moment of that song.
I go through seasons when music sounds especially good, and it feels like a miracle every time. It’s been hard to trust that this feeling is cyclical, and when it leaves me it’s not for good. At this point in my life, I’ve made music into something of a job, but there have been times when I loved it for nothing, made hundreds of playlists for myself and no one else. I needed to collect and order and name something to unravel how I felt, to communicate with no one about a particular situation or emotion. I can’t remember if I was angsty and my angst made the playlists coalesce around pining and disillusionment or if it was the other way around. I have always loved a sad song. The work has been a part of me, a pane in my lens of the world, for so long that the cause and effect are indistinguishable from one another.
I was talking to a friend yesterday about why I make things, whether my art can be pure when I feel such a strong motivation to share it. I know there are videos somewhere in some unplayable file format of me prancing around as a child, performing. I wanted to be a Broadway actress. I wanted to be a rockstar. I wanted to be a politician. It feels base to admit that this desire is so core to my orientation towards my work, and myself; it’s true that I create work as an essential expression, an exorcism of something too big to hold, but I also maintain a predisposition to commercialization—that’s why you’re here, reading this newsletter, which is more like a diary entry.
Some days I want to separate my ego from my work and some days I think my perspective is the essence of what I create, and to remove it would be sucking the air out of the balloon. Since I read this Are.na Editorial interview with Emily Segal about the personal nature of work I have thought about it everyday; the belief that good things come from the heart has fundamentally altered my navigation of my business and my life. I am no longer afraid to be cringe on the internet, no longer afraid to be seen trying, because I know what I’m doing is worthwhile to me if to no one else. The commercial success of the next Bike Lane album, which we’ve just finished the demos for and will record this summer, is ancillary to me because I know I am proud of the songs and that my collaborators and I will work to make them good. turntable is still uncapitalized; I know that everything I’m doing is moving me towards success, even if it looks different than I thought it might when I decided to build the thing.
I’ve determined that my foremost goal is to create a body of work that I’m proud of (this strategy maps well onto just about everything in my life—make a mistake in my relationships? handle it in a way I’m proud of. fail to meet a deadline? communicate in a way I’m proud of). Last week, Blake and I were discussing whether he should repost his music as Von Thrasher on streaming, which he took down in a moment of self doubt. I told him if he’s proud of the growth, or the story it tells, or the collaboration it speaks to, put it back. I do not feel that every Bike Lane song is perfect—I don’t even like the way I sound on most of Wake Up in the Weeds (2021)—but ultimately it is good work and I love the thing we made.
So who is it all for? Can I make the world a better place if I’m working towards the categorically selfish goal of making myself proud? I hope that it’s the best use of my energy, that if I focus on fulfilling my purpose the universe will take care of me. I went on a rant on a podcast the other day about why a lot of music is so self-similar now: it’s so expensive and stressful to be alive that people who could get by with one job and make art on the side now have to have two jobs and come home with no time or energy for making anything at all. No one can be blamed for taking a safe bet, making something tried and true. I say all this from the perspective of a person making Phoebe Bridgers rip off music with a benefits-providing day job, but I wish more of my friends were less exhausted. I wish we all had more room to consider what we really should be doing. We’d be in a better place.
All this is to say: are you making yourself proud? Keep going. turntable soon. Bike Lane 3 soon. talk soon.