songs for myself

I always wanted to be in a band, but I was convinced it was impossible.

I didn’t pick up a guitar until I was eighteen and wasn’t proficient enough to play with other people until I was twenty. By then, the one thing driving me get better was playing with the band at the Episcopal summer camp where I worked. This is about as close as I’ve ever come (or ever will come) to being a rock star.

When not at summer camp, my childhood best friends and I would get together and record music just for fun. We’d share terrible songs we’d written, then work out arrangements in GarageBand. This is about as close as I’ve ever come (or will ever come) to being a recording artist.

After college, most of the practical reasons to continue playing my guitar disappeared. I graduated college and stopped working at summer camp. My friends moved away and recording music with them became more trouble than it was worth.

But I kept playing for no other reason than to make myself happy.

I still play and I still write songs. I keep learning and getting better. Sometimes I share my music, but mostly I don’t. I still dream about being in a band, but at almost thirty (and in the throes of a global pandemic), finding the right collaborators seems unlikely. For now, I’m content to stick with playing my acoustic guitar and making demos in my bedroom.

After all, what’s more punk these days than recording an analog instrument and not sharing your work on the internet?