Sing your own song, even if it's someone else's
Why singing or playing music on your own terms will always be more thrilling than trying to imitate everyone else
In our house, we have a giant shiny, inflatable T hanging over our couch.
You can see it from outside our little house, and I love the thought of people in our small village in Switzerland wondering what on earth it’s doing there. (It’s a hangover from a certain someone’s birthday almost a year ago, and is still going strong.)
The truth is that as a small Australian family living in Switzerland we don’t always fit in, a bit like the giant T. This can certainly be a challenge, but I’ve also come to appreciate our uniqueness (and I hope our neighbours do, too).
Because why would we want to be like everyone else? It’s both a relief and incredibly freeing when you realise that a) it’s never going to happen, and b) why would we want to let go of our values and culture and ways of doing things? In other words, let go of who we are?
We all live in a society increasingly focused on perfection and uniformity, on looking the same, acting the same, following that same path, celebrating those same milestones.
Yet we’ve probably never been more dissatisfied and insecure, encouraged to think that if there’s a problem it’s on us. The only way to change things, we’re told, is to improve ourselves, and the only way to find our true selves is it be like everybody else. Confused?
The trouble with not straying from the path is that we miss out on finding out what it’s like to try something different. To experiment, to create, to find answers for ourselves instead of having them thrust upon us. And we risk losing sight of the very essence of what makes us gloriously and bewilderingly ourselves.
The same goes for music. If you can’t imagine singing a song without doing it exactly the same way—every note, every inflection—as the original singer, you’ll be taking a path that, while less risky, means you won’t get to experience that emotional charge that comes from making music on your own terms, from making mistakes and seeing where they take you, from creating something from scratch or something new out of something old.
Take the risk, on the other hand, and you’ll not only realise that you have a choice, but that there’s something magical about injecting a bit of you into every song.
So I’m declaring 2024, here and now, as the year for colouring outside the lines, singing and playing music on your own terms, or hanging a giant T on your wall.
Are you with me?