Sara,
I clipped together the most meaningful and interesting parts of the conversation you and I had on Where Does The Good Grow Instagram Live, about collaboration last year (two years ago? Pandemic brain). At the time, a lot of people commented about how personal the moment felt as if we’d forgotten we were live on the internet. I’ve been thinking a lot about the exchange, and our creative process, and felt like it would be cool to share on Substack.
This was the first time I heard you say (and admit publicly) that you didn’t necessarily trust my opinion when it came to your songs or our music; that we were maybe too close to it, had been doing it too long to really have perspective. At the moment I thought you might be attempting to be tendentious for laughs, but it sparked a shift in the way I approached writing songs for our new album. I feel like I was so stoked about what you were writing, and you seemed only mildly invested in what I was creating. Which is not a dig. You were trying something new with not just your songwriting, but the production of the songs themselves. You wanted us to be back in the producer role and have a bigger hand in crafting our new album’s sound. I think I wasn’t there yet, wasn’t thinking about the big picture. I was just writing songs. Something I love to do. But don’t often labor over.
While editing the convo, I was a little sad that you felt that way, and had chosen to tell me in front of thousands of people. But after that, I decided to be more open to hearing feedback from people about our writing. It was terrifying and fascinating to send songs to musicians in my life, friends whose taste in music I respect, and some of the managers we were meeting with. They all seemed so excited by what you were making, and so I decided to collaborate with you more and to push you to examine my songs and give more feedback even if it was going to make me feel bad or create more work for me. I wanted the songs I was writing to fit better with what you were making. And I think it worked.
Also, I found it interesting to go back and watch the conversation over a year later, and hear you say you didn’t know if the songs you were writing were good. I don’t necessarily believe that you didn’t know if you were writing good songs, but you clearly wanted more voices/ears/opinions than just mine. I have never needed a wide audience of peers or people to make me feel good about what I make. Impressing you has always been my goal. But it did feel good to widen the inner circle, to work harder and write better stronger songs, and allow for the songs to evolve and change, away from what I had intended. I think it made for a better album, potentially a great one.
I’m excited for us to share more about what it feels like to be releasing our tenth album, to be celebrating twenty-five years of writing music together, and dig into why we felt it was necessary to expand the creative universe we work in by writing books, graphic novels, even this newsletter.
When we had the conversation on Instagram I was afraid of what you were saying, but I agree now: it’s hard to know if what we are doing is good, but we have so many people around us to rely on, who we trust, and I think if we keep pushing each other, we’ll just get better.
Anyway, check out my edit of the conversation and let me know if you think it’s a good idea to share.
Tegan
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