So it may, or may not come as a shock to you, but I do other things than write this column. And yes, before you ask, I AM as good at other things as I am with coming to you weekly with ridiculously insightful insights. (Hard to believe, isn't it?)
Another thing that I do that instills me with pride is that I am a co-founder of the band The Epsilon Project (you may have heard of us ... demo/first EP coming in early June ... details soon!) Along with co-writing all the music for these songs, I have been entrusted (nobody else wanted to do it) with writing all the lyrics. This responsibility I do not take lightly. I have written many catchy songs over my years here and whenever I hear somebody singing along with my words it bloats my ego a little bit. Yes, that even happens to me sometimes. Humble as I am.
But something weird has been happening lately when I'm in my writing corner. Yes, I have a space in which I do all my writing. So what that it faces a corner?
Anyway, I digress.
We were going through the songs on the album trying to find a general theme, so we could come up with a title for it. It wasn't until then that it dawned on me.
I write about the same things all the time.
One song was about a girl not liking me. Another song was about this girl not liking me because she has a boyfriend. Another song was about a girl that I liked being mean to me. The last song was about something political. I couldn't help but think, What the hell was I doing writing about politics? How cliché!
But seriously, this theme of being let down was even starting to depress me. So I decided to do a little experiment over this last week.
I was going to write a song not about love-related things.
Day 1 - I sat down with my guitar and pad and paper for over an hour and came up with nothing. This is going to be harder than I thought. (That's what she said? Is that appropriate in print?)
Day 2 - Some girl gave me a dirty look when she caught me checking her out on the way home from class. Fought the urge to write the line, Baby if you don't want to be looked at
quit being so sexy. I'm really glad that nobody knows I thought of that.
Day 3 - Listened to B.B. King all day so I didn't even try to write anything because I knew it would turn into: If you keep pushin' on me baby you'll see this grown man cry.
Day 4 - Uh-oh, I might have something here, but who wants to hear a song about Student Senate hypocrisy?
Day 5 - Gave up.
What did I learn from all of this?
I learned that if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
I'm good at what I do.
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Opinion
Stephen Pirovolos
