What People Don't Get

I'm a songwriter. It's what I do. I have to. It's not a "hey, that sounds like a neat job!" thing. It's a, "If I didn't, I wouldn't know who I am" thing.

So anyhow, here's what people don't get:

MY SONGS ARE NOT ME. I AM NOT ANY ONE SONG (except maybe Optimism). IT'S NOT ALL NECESSARILY FACT. (it's called artistic license).

See, a song is just itself. Yes, it came from the writer, and maybe the writer can say "this sums me up", but once you release it, it doesn't belong to you anymore. Yes, I own it, I make money from it, but that's not what I mean. I mean you give it away to every ear who hears it, and it becomes theirs too. The only way to keep a song, to make it be completely You, is to never play it for anyone else.

I sort of realized this just now from an earlier act of bravery. I played this sweet song for some people at Cafe Gardens Sunday afternoon and they seemed all touched by it (oh my gosh it's beautiful), and I told them "I just realized that I'd never played that song in public before, so y'all are the first ever to hear it!" and they thought that was cute.

SO AT THAT MOMENT, THE SONG WAS NO LONGER IN MY POSSESSION. Humanity owns it, basically I guess.

I keep hearing this word "courage", as in, "Haylee, it takes a lot of courage to go out there and play your own songs, or to even open up your voice and hands to people." Uh, okay. It just seems like that's what I'm supposed to do. If you do something well, like perform surgery, fix a car, teach kids math, play rugby, YOU DO IT. Why is it so courageous to perform the role you naturally fill?

So there you go along, doing what what you do, and hey! the world is full of people all around you! Hi there, People! So you interact and make friends and so forth, but we all also have jobs to contribute to this greater whole we call "society", of which we are all a member, right? Cause if each person didn't do their job, it wouldn't work, right? Each of us holds up our end.

My end is the music one. All of our roles perform a function for everybody else. I like my thing that I do because it helps people feel. My best buddy Allison told me once, about which song I don't recall, "Hales, the lyrics of that song just lift out of my bones the feeling I'd never be able to say out loud."

Wow. Holy crap, I did that? I was just talking to myself at the time! I wrote that song about ME, and about THAT KID, and at the fresh time I wrote it, I felt it all the way every time I played it. So years pass, other stuff happens with other kids, and the songs still apply. THAT'S WHEN YOU KNOW THE SONG/BIRD HAS LEFT ITS MAMA'S NEST and flies around by itself singing to anyone but no one in particular, just to get out what's been trapped inside itself.

Other people take ownership of your song. It's called "interpretation". I've been told that my older, less mature songs (haha written about a very immature subject) are too specific, that writing a song should be mechanized and generalized enough so more people will buy into that because that's how you make money at songwriting! PUUUUUUUKKE! HUUUUWAAAAAHHH! COUGH COUGH COUGH. But somehow, they reach other people who say to me, "that song sums up my entire love life". Wow.

Listen man, I do it because I have to. I once asked my favorite artist of all-time, Audrey Owens, former roommate and best bud since freshman year at Jennings ground floor, why she did her art stuff. (she did drawings of lizards, birds, taught me how to put a collage together, built furniture with her dad, I mean if you can imagine some sort of far out way to spend an afternoon creating something she did it). She kind of laughed and sort of pondered the question, and said, "I do it because it pleases me, I guess. It's a really selfish thing for me, I just do it because I like doing it."

Wow.

That was a turning point for me. Someone else did her thing because she WANTED to do it, while I did what I did because I HAD to do it. WOW, it never occurred to me that I could LIKE doing it. Maybe because the stuff I wrote songs about was painful to me. I wrote songs to release pain about these feelings in my bones I couldn't get out of my mouth, just like Allison said.

So when you are good at something, and you like doing it, you're more inclined to share it. So I give it away to other people, but I don't expect everyone to be "pleased" by it. If I'm pleased, that's all there is to it. Because I know that God is pleased because THIS IS WHAT HE CREATED ME TO DO. And I'm only being true to it. And he's sent people who like what I do to reinforce this fact.

I've been in and out of love with making music soooo many times. But I guess I was ready now. Wow. I just realized the last big thing I wrote songs about was the first time I'd ever been completely open to feeling love. And ooooh I felt it, all the way. And it was great, it's been great, and will continue to be great for me, because I'm experiencing a side of love I hadn't ever seen before. My songs would be boring if I kept viewing the muse from the same old angle over and over again. And I wrote a lot of songs about it. And I think Carlie Simon was right when she said "You're so vain/you probably think this song is about you". And yeah, from a certain point of view, it is. But, I WROTE IT FOR ME. M.E. Haylee Ugh Slaughter. It was a selfish act, something I had to do for myself. It just so happens the songs are pretty dad gum good and other people like them a lot. And I keep on writing, but it's evolving, and different feelings emerge now when I play them, just like songs I wrote six years ago have turned the tables on me. I am now the jerk, the You the Singer sings to, the beguiling a-hole who carelessly broke a heart. And that's fine. I learned something. I wrote something.

BUT THOSE SONGS ARE NOT ME. And they are not about that kid anymore. Because since other people have heard them, they are about a number of people. I played "The One Comes of Age" at my BFF Dennis' Good-Luck-At-Tulane-Law-School party, and Chad & his bf laughed when I sang the line "the one you thought was smart but couldn't comprehend your famous monologues" (because Chad will go off on a tangent sometimes and his boy is all, um yeah left field). (the chorus is: "I want the One who'll take me to the sea and swim out as far as he can with me/I want the One who'll take me to the edge" So when I finished the song, Chad just said "Wow" and something about never being happier that he knows me than he did right then. I almost fell over. My highly personal song, which I wrote as generally as possible so it could be appreciated by as many people as possible (see, I still know how to craft sometimes), knocked him over.

And it is a beautiful song. :) And I honestly wrote it for other people, not just for myself. I THANK GOD for the experiences, even the ones when you publicly humiliate the One you found to love because he's just like you and he ends up rejecting you, hating your guts, sending vitriolic emails, telling everyone you're insane and a bad rugby player and intimidating his friends not to associate with you, BECAUSE THESE EXPERIENCES HAVE BROUGHT ME CLOSER TO GOD.

CLOSER TO LOVE. Because I have seen 1 Corinthians 13 with my own eyes. I know how to agape. I heard from a really neat boy I met this past weekend that love is cool, but being IN love is complete and utter B.S. He felt very strongly about this. But I said hey man, the Greeks had FOUR WORDS TO DESCRIBE LOVE, and our culture has boiled it down to one four-letter word that has this HUGE meaning - the Bible said GOD IS LOVE, and what the heck is bigger than GOD HIMSELF? Jeez. So I told him, the highest form of love is AGAPE, brotherly love, as in wishing someone well, even if they hate you, even if you've never met them and they live on the other side of the world, YOU AGAPE/LOVE THAT PERSON AND HOPE GOOD THINGS FOR THEM. BECAUSE THAT IS HOW GOD LOVES US. So that is anything but B.S. And he had to agree.

So I've been kicking around these four basic motivations we all have thing that I heard about from Kerri O'Malley, my college rugby coach/current coach of the Gainesville Hogs. She said we all do everything we do for one or more of the following: POWER, FUN, FREEDOM, OR LOVE.

I've seen my rugby career follow this pattern. Now, I see my evolution as a songwriter go this way as well.

Binary

I’ve never really wanted to be a satellite, a supernova, or the worst, the sun of someone’s solar system; a distant, consistent repetition, never getting closer, an inevitable black hole, or never seeing my reflection off his atmosphere for my own heat, respectively. No, my ideal celestial situation would be as exactly one half of a binary star system, with each as brilliant as the other. Not shadowing or obscuring, but enhancing each other’s brightness, intensifying our collective power to shine our light that much further across the galaxy for gazing eyes to wish upon.

Beach Angel Quotes

Debbie Summers. What a woman. I never would've met her had I not left my cigarettes in my car at Matty's house.


"Sometimes God has to close our ears so we can hear our own minds."

"God will give you the shoes, but he ain't gonna tie your shoelaces."

"Her words are saying one thing but her eyes say something else."

"I believed in discipline by embarrassment."

(To me): "You just wanna control the Universe!"

"God's voice is so soft you can only hear it with your Soul."

"Barn swallow nests look like apartment complexes."

"Jesus fought like the boys (troops) are doing over there (in Iraq): To give us the freedom to choose to accept Him or not."

"Free Will is a bad idea!"

"Do not lie to me! And I'll decide who to lie to!"

"My kids tell me, 'You are not a tree-huggin' hippie anymore Mom!' and I say 'Yes I am, shut up!'"

"Have you ever wished on a shooting star and then realized it was an airplane?"

Debbie: I'm not trying to be gross but you have an incredible body.
Me: Well I work out like a maniac like everyday.
Debbie: Yeah I did that once, I think it was a Tuesday in 1984.

To any man she meets in a bar:
"I'm not even talking to you because I won't have a war with an unarmed man!"

On her son, Derek Scott, who died on his 21st birthday 5 years ago in a one-car accident:
"I always wanted to find a starfish on the beach, and one day shortly after he died I found a live starfish. It moved in my hand and I felt God say, "It was never yours to begin with", just like Derek. So I let it go in the water."
"I can't carry his corpse around, but his Spirit is always with me."


Amen.

The First Time

THE FIRST TIME Lyrics and Music by Haylee Slaughter

Copyright 2007 Haylee Slaughter Music

Written during the worst period of writer's block in my life on Gage's couch! :)


You’ve come so far / you think you’re done

Well bless your heart / we’ve only just begun

Oh darlin’, how can it be?

Still lots to prove / more ground to cover

More rocks to move / from one pile to the other

Oh darlin’, is this happenin’ to me?


You’re so humble / you democrat

Pride makes you stumble / a clumsy acrobat

Oh darlin’, why would that be?

Familiar voices / you turn and squint

Unwise choices / they found your fingerprints

Oh darlin’, is this happenin’ to me?


And I just saw the end of my nose for the first time

And I’m just now feelin’ the warmth of the sunshine

And it looks so good to me

And it feels so good to me

To me

To me


Let’s get to learnin’ / activity

My ears are burnin’ with compulsivity

Oh darlin’, why would that be?

Try to behave / and join the chorus

Echoes the cave / where I lost my thesaurus

Oh darlin’, why’d that happen to me?


And I just saw the end of my nose for the first time

And I’m just now feelin’ the warmth of the sunshine

And it looks so good to me

And it feels so good to me

To me

To me


Cause real life / ain’t on a station

He spoke my name / the hour of my creation

Oh darlin’, how could that be?

I’m getting old / my bones are brittle

It was foretold / I’d die in a hospital

Oh darlin’, will it happen to me?


And I just saw the end of my nose for the first time

And I’m just now feelin’ the warmth of the sunshine

And it looks so good to me

And it feels so good to me

To me

To me

C2007 HAYLEE SLAUGHTER MUSIC

Mondnacht - from Liederkreis, opus 39 by Robert Schumann (1810-1856), written 1840

Uuugggghhhhhhhh. :) These are the lyrics to my favorite piece by Schumann, SO BEAUTIFUL, the music is even more so than the words, because, not in spite of, its simplicity. Please excuse the fact that I don't have German keys on my keyboard (well I probably do but don't know how to use them).

Sometimes, when I'm really still, looking heavenward, my soul recites this in its original translation, in the hand it was written.


Zart, heimlich.
Es war, als butt - der Himmel die Erde stilt ge kusst, dass sie im Bluthenschinimer von ihmi nur traumen musst'.
Die Luft gimg darch die Felder, die Achren wrogten nacht, es rauschten leis'-die Walder, so sternklar war - die Nacht. Und meine See - le apannte weit ihre Flugel aus - flogdureb die stillen Land de als floge - sie mach Hous.

Secretly, tenderly.

-Moonlight.

It was as if the heavens had silently kissed the earth so that the earth had only to dream of it in shiny blooms. The air ran though the fields, the rows of wheat were gently rollling, the trees were gently rustling; thus the night was clear as stars. And my soul expanded its wings, through quiet lands, as if it were flying home.

Fin.

Things Daddy Taught Me

1) how to field and squarely hit a baseball
2) how to clean a chicken breast (this didn't really take, I still just eat it with my hands)
3) how to LOVE music, down to allowing it to power the ATP that powers the cells in my body
4) how to do cool backflips and dangerous dives into a swimming pool
5) to love books
6) how to bait a hook with a good old-fashioned worm
7) how to pass out in a chair
8) how to decide to not let stuff bother me so much
9) how to spit - one day he said, "Did I ever teach you how to spit?" and made sure I had the proper technique (get the loogie on the tip of your tongue and flick and blow at the same time)
10) how to spit out of a car window moving very fast (still mess this one up sometimes!)
11) why everything should have its place to stay organized
12) to appreciate my athletic achievements and to never take my ability for granted (cuz he never realized his potential, which is why the Natural still makes him cry)
13) that it's okay to cry!!!
14) to love playing with little kids and how to hold a baby
15) to use music as an outlet (I'll never forget the day he brought home my first guitar!)
16) how to give sincerely heart-felt hugs
17) that it's okay to have a boyfriend - "No sense in wasting your time if you know he won't be The One."
18) loyalty
19) integrity
20) to be generous whenever possible
21) to not take crap off of anyone
22) to remember that he loves me no matter what
23) that a Gator football loss really isn't a life-or-death situation
24) financial responsibility
25) to never forget who I am or where I came from, because I am Sam Jr, and wherever he is is home.

I LOVE MY DADDY!!!

Philadelphia

Here for the first time. Just got back from dinner at Bookbinder's (very fancy place in "Social Circle"...yeah). It was quite good, had the blackened swordfish. It had better'a been good, my friend Mark was 1.5 hours late! :) It's all good, I've known that kid since I was 15! He's an ER doc at Albert Einstein hospital up here now. His girlfriend (a trauma surgeon) Susan is pretty cool too. Caught up on old times. As luck would have it, my phone ran out of power just as I was passing the sports complex! I could've gotten a shot of where the Phillies and Eagles play! Oh welllss.

So it's late. All the other girls in the room are asleep (two Jenns and a Venessa) - I'm that kid who can't sleep for nerves. Touch-judging tomorrow at Pumpkinfest. IN THE RAIN! Woo hoo Hanna!

I dunno. I took 27 pages of notes about referee-ing today. This stuff is pretty hardcore. It's not even about right and wrong; continuity is paramount. Kinda like life. You can dwell on this great thing you're doing or how wrong someone did you, but are you still moving forward?

That is the question of the day. I want to always be moving forward (north and south!) and provide support for my teammates. What else is there?