Must. Stop. Whining.

Over the last two weeks, a bit of a pattern has formed. I've spent a while moaning about how little time I've had to give this project any attention, then I've moaned about the quality of the finished song, only to have other people say they liked it.

This could mean I'm one of nature's complainers (true), I'm not a very good judge of my own stuff (I suspect this is also true), or I'm fishing for compliments and reassurance (if this is true, it's subconscious, but I'm not discounting it entirely).

I think there was an intention of demonstrating how little effort or quality control all this required, and that a hastily dashed-off 'that'll-do' song was inferior to one that took real work and crafting, but maybe I'm wrong. I honestly don't know. If people are obliging me with compliments because they think I'm being self-deprecating in order to seek reassuring praise, nice as it is to receive it, that was never my conscious intention.

I'm trying to be as objective and honest about the songs as I can. I do write songs I really like, and others I think are less good. But my tastes don't always tally with the listeners'. I tend to favour linguistic, harmonic, melodic and structural complexity, little spun sugar confections that have been crafted slowly, with delicacy and intricacy. Listeners often prefer simpler, more rustic affairs, and I can understand that - I'm looking at songs from the perspective of what it took for me to make them, whereas others just listen to them for how they sound. And rightly so.

As a result of this, I've come to several conclusions:

1) We can take it as read that the one-song-a-week timeframe is not where I'm at my most comfortable, so they're always going to feel rushed and semi-formed to me.
2) There's no point in me voicing this any further.
3) From now on, I'm not going to make any personal qualitative judgement on the songs; feel free to say nice things by all means, but not to counter my own negative responses to the material. Compliments are better when they haven't been fished for.
4) I'm going to try not to worry about treading tired ground, and am going to embrace a bit of simplicity and rustic charm.
5) Actually, I'm not going to worry about any aspect of this. If I can knock out a song a week - any song - that's all I have to do to fulfil my end of the deal. It could be a repetetive 3-chorder about toenails; it really doesn't matter.

So. I'm going to do one now.