Day 7: Afraid

Lyrics:
I think I'm moving backwards
I think I've said all the words
And every phrase that I have to say
And I'm so afraid

I think I'm turning upside down
I think that I've lost my ground
And never stand for anything
And I'm so ashamed

And being alone would ease the pain
It's been so long, and I long to love again
But I'd be lost without you

I think I'm moving forward
I think that I'm moving towards
A better place than I've been before
But I'm still afraid

Details: Tonight was a struggle. I've joined up with a week long song-a-day challenge called Fearless Songwriting-- I figured since I'm already writing a song-a-day this month anyway, I might as well join in for a week. But I think it's actually more stressful than what I've been doing. Part of it is that there are prompts, so I feel like I need to stick to the prompt somehow (today's prompt was "too long"). The other thing stressing me out is that the audience is primarily other musicians, which I tend to imagine will more closely scrutinize my work. So I started off trying to come up with something that would wow them, and completely building around the prompt, and... well, it wasn't working. I came up with a bunch of stuff I found uninspiring.

Finally I just said "screw it-- I was doing just fine before" and started writing something really, really simple. I got caught up in the sound of playing the guitar all pizzicato, and then the words started coming; at first they were about my frustration with tonight's songwriting, but I turned it into something more relationship oriented. I wasn't planning on including the prompt, but I sort of fit it into the bridge of the song.

All told, it took about 3 hours to write this simple tune, and about 30 minutes to record it. My first week into Song-a-day January is complete! Just 3 more weeks and change to go...