I have the luxury of carefully considering the discographies of songwriters I enjoy in any order I like. As a perennial songwriting hopeful, this offers access to an amazing source of inspiration. But the listener's illusion is such that it is hard to escape the feeling that I can never hope to reach the levels of even the most minor of efforts of one's idols. Why illusion rather than fact? Because it's rare that one does not find significant growth, or least sharpening of style in the songs as time goes by. So while I invariably measure myself against the best, that is usually not how things began for them. Which raises at least a couple of questions in my mind.

First, what really prevents us from getting things right the first time? Practice and maturity are often claimed to be essential to honing's one skill as a writer of any form. Both make perfect sense to me when it comes to technical writing; with artistic writing, less so. I assume that inspiration, and strength of feeling, are not things we can hope to control with any amount of practice on our part. It might partly help with channeling of these ingredients. but surely no more than partly? It is true, of course, that inspiration grows out of what we see and experience, and the general array of faces and ideas we are exposed to. Perhaps "maturity" just means the ability for us to process these things effectively. The unsettling alternative is that it is a confounding with sheer random chance, meaning that there are works of greatness lost to all time simply because an inopportune coin flip that prevents one's mind from being unlocked.

Second, it is likely apparent to writers themselves the flaws in their early works -- for songwriters, it is typically being too wordy or deliberately "poetic". As this is an area I have some expertise in, I am thus curious: what keeps them going through that time? Were they too close to the material and think it all good? Or did they feel there was still something inside that they hadn't explored to their satisfaction? As someone who has the further luxury of dispensing frightening doses of doggerel and general vapidity, it's always felt like the latter, but I'm not sure if it generalises. Personally, each time I've felt the need to express something, even upon trying and failing, there has remained the sense that perhaps with time, I will attain the means with which to capture what it is I am feeling. As a favourite songwriter put it, there's just something in my soul -- what can I do?