Let yourself be yourself

In Paul Zollo's Songwriters on Songwriting, Jackson Browne talks about a moment in a concert in which he began playing a new song. The audience believed that they were hearing a familiar favorite because it apparently sounded so much like another song of his. They started applauding and cheering in appreciation, which was probably a little awkward when the song turned out to be something else.

I think of this often in my own work and creative pursuits, from songwriting to blogging to teaching. I even think of it when I watch video or listen to audio of myself and cringe at my facial expressions and vocal tics. Jackson Browne's story reminds me that we can't help but be who we are, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

We can try to fight this. We might get so annoyed at our own habits and patterns that we try to change them. We might mimic the styles of people we admire, a phenomenon evident on platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok ("Hey guys! What is up! Welcome to my channel..."). We might reject the creative works that are too much like the ones we've created in the past.

Writing every day has cured me of the temptation to excise myself from my work. It would be too much effort to try to avoid my signature turns of phrase, my favorite topics, and the things I do that scream "Casey" that I'm completely unaware of. I have no choice but to show up as myself. In fact, being myself is the point. Repeating myself is part of that, too. If someone doesn't like what I have to offer here, they're not going to like me, and I can't do much about that.

When I consider the artists and creators I love, I realize that they all have weird things they do that I accept as part of the package. Elton John pronounces words strangely, while Bernie wrote all those inscrutable lyrics about being a cowboy. My favorite podcast has a bunch of episodes about cryptocurrency that I tend to skip. Stephen King has written some questionable scenes, and his books probably don't need to be as long as they are. I'm fine with these things.

It's kind of fun to listen to a lesser hit of a genius like Smokey Robinson or Marvin Gaye and hear that it's 60% made up of components of their other hits. They were building on what worked.

Why do some artists do it for us and others don't? And how do we know when there are legitimate problems in our work that we need to address? I can't answer those questions for everyone. All I know is that letting myself be myself has been a key element of getting this blog out the door every day. I write without overthinking each sentence, I allow myself to overlap topics, and I am willing to be formulaic. Otherwise, I would never hit publish.

Am I comparing myself to Elton John, Jackson Browne, and the Motown greats? Yes! Anyone who is prolific has figured out how to create without self-censoring. Not everything they do is going to be their finest masterpiece. And everything they do will be unmistakably their own. How you feel about that will depend on how you feel about the artist.

I'm not saying I'm a generational talent. What I mean is that Smokey had his version of "good enough," and I have mine. If I spend another hundred years polishing a blog post, it's not going to turn into a Seth Godin riff. I might as well ship it when it's complete. I can't erase the "me" from it anyway. And maybe there's someone out there who wouldn't want me to (Hi, Mom!).

I depend on the artists I follow to repeat themselves and be predictable. Aimee Mann always uses secondary dominants in her music and writes about bitter people, singing with a slightly nasal, under-pitched twang. Wes Anderson's films tend to be mannered and precious. The band Fountains of Wayne, which featured the late, great Adam Schlesinger, was known for songs about the unglamorous lives of young men in living in the suburbs of the northeastern United States. These works have a distinct audience, and that's what makes them compelling. They don't have to appeal to everybody.

If you're struggling to share your work or even create it in the first place, how might it change things if you were to let yourself be yourself? What if you were to decide that it's none of your business what other people think of your work or how others perceive you? What if the very things you're most self-conscious about were actually your most endearing traits to the people who adore you?

Maybe we would love your work, if you let us. Even if we didn't, that doesn't mean it's wrong. Maybe it would grow on us, or it's not meant for us. Either way, what you make might be perfect for what it is: perfectly you, perfectly of its moment. Release it and go make the next thing. If it looks or sounds a lot like something else you made, so much the better.