Songs with a writers introduction are so important. Open the door to a deeper understanding. If you have lost someone too early, I'm sure you can relate to the pain Shawn experiences just trying to tell the story, and maybe also know that time delay - some things can be too upsetting for the mind to fully process right away.
Writing is both healing and transporting. When a writer is tackling material from personal loss, real experiences, it can feel overwhelming at first. It’s amazing how the body can store emotions for later, just sort of sets them aside hidden somewhere in the back of the brain, until that unexpected knock at the door. Then the flood. And the lyrics come.
I have found over time a song can start to feel less attached to the heartstrings, the more you sing it or listen, the further you get from the mournful fog in which the song was written. It feels like clarity first to put it down and say it; but in essence it works like an exorcism. It kind of heals the pain. It makes it easier to visit the material, and the song becomes more for the listeners. As if its purpose for the writer is then completed and detached.
Writing sometimes can feel selfish. Taking these moments and funnelling them through your eyes, your images, your life and way of expression. Sometimes it feels like we shouldn’t be wrapping our own ribbon around all these stories and wisdoms that the world is revealing. But if that song even helps just one person, if just one mind relates and appreciates or is helped to understand something by what you’ve written, then that’s all that matters. So keep writing about the hard stuff. Do it for you, and then let them listen. If it lands on one set of listening ears, it’s worth it. Songwriting is communication. More show than tell, it is one of the gentlest ways to pass along story. And for some artists - the only way they can.
