Monday, September 23, 2024

Songwriting Irony in 2024

A million years ago during my rock & roll band days in Brooklyn, whenever I'd be writing a new song I'd obsess over whether it could be accused of ripping off another song; no matter how esoteric or buried deeeeeeeeeeep down inside some band's catalog it may be I clung to some dedicated idea of musical integrity despite the fact that usually whatever song I'd be worried about theoretically stealing from would've been known maybe to maybe 6 people on Earth, and it was back in the days when if you wanted to actually hear something that wasn't on the radio 24/7 you'd hafta find a way to hunt it down somewhere, which could take years & years (I know I know, I was there I don't believe it either but it's 100% true). And even after that, pretty much nobody other than the people in my band ever would hear my new song anyway, so it was pointless for me to even worry about it in the first place anyway.

Meanwhile, BECAUSE we're living in a world where everybody has instant access to every song ever and so it's impossible to not theoretically rip anything else off now, I never worry about anybody "spotting!" that oh god no I may have come up with something similar to the 2nd guitar break in Black Angel's Death Song.

I feel like I'm close to connecting a collective psychological ownership phenomenon with capital-I "irony" along with some R O C K, but my brain just clocked out for the day so 🤷‍♂️.

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