Believe it or not, there was a time in my life that I really cared about the details in my artistic work. If I was doing a play, I read it over and over and played with each word in my study. If I was writing, I would go back and punch up and edit and punch up and edit and read it again and again and again out loud to make sure it was right. I played in the subway four hours every day, and still rehearsed like mad and went to jams and when I recorded I was careful careful careful.

You get the picture.

You do that stuff for a couple of decades and sooner or later you go, “I actually don’t need to do all of this. I know what to do.” Because you’re just better at what you do.

But then I kind of made it a thing.

On my first album, one review praised me and compared my lyric writing to Grace Slick (here’s the thought, here’s the lyric). I was direct, precise, but not overly clever. That was what I wanted as a songwriter, and that is what I achieved.

Lately, though, everything I do is less, “Here’s the thought, here’s the lyric,” and more, “Here’s the gist. You catch my drift.”

I’m thinking now about cottage whore, which I plunked out on my banjo with three strings on it, sloppily, and took like one pass at the lyrics, immediately thought of the ones that need work–like, it would take minimal effort to do better–but I said, “Whatever, though. It still conveys the thing.” And I took some B roll footage and slapped it together, and didn’t even care about how it repeats, and it cuts off at the end, but I still said, “I mean ..they’ll get the drift,” and I fucking posted it.

There is a time I would not have done that. I’m not so sure I should have done it. But I’m also unmoved to change it. I don’t care, I guess is what I’m saying.

And I don’t know how I mean that. I don’t know if I don’t care because I have a larger thing to say, and I’m making a statement about the constant demand for content, or if I have simply given up, or if I’m saying something about perfectionism, or if I’m just being lazy. Or if I feel I’ve earned the right to not care, or if I’m a hack.

I don’t know. I don’t care. It’s…I guess a motif I’m in right now. Process was kind of the same way.

Perhaps a fear of being judged? I don’t want to finish my work?

No, I don’t think that’s it. I know I’ll be judged more harshly. Getting older in your career and worse at the details is generally regarded as bad.

But I still don’t care.

I think it’s more like…humanity is messy. I miss messy humanity. I am showing messy humanity. I’m sick of slick. I’m sick of that even being an expectation.

But one can take that sort of thing too far.

Anywho. All of that to say….I don’t know. I don’t care. But…hell, just go with me on it. Maybe I’m onto something.

I truly don’t know.

Check out Cottage Whore. I may redo it better. Or not. I don’t know. I like it, though.

Maybe that’s it. Maybe I’m just doing what I like. Maybe I just finally know what I like.