Personal or Cultural, What to Write About

It is not the best of times. Fortunately, it is not the worst of times, but depending on your political slant it can certainly seem that way. While I save my political observations for my other blog, Yeah, I don't think that's right, it's hard not to notice the great discord between parties, regions, and people. Within this environment, the artist has to decide where to direct his/her energies; personal or social. My last 2 projects, We Three and Whispers (From a Forgotten Memory), were personal takes on topics involving love, loss, memory, and how they affect us over time.
However, in my Seattle period, 1984 to 1991, love songs and anything personal were rare offerings-I had my fill of all that in the Denver/Navy period of 1978 to 1984. My preference and interest were in writing about social conditions. Apologia and its predecessor, Life Without Chickens, are social commentary albums with topics such as AIDS, status as a vehicle in both private and public, religion as examples.
I find these topics far more interesting and as such they tend to be the direction I take when I write; this starts with the composition of the music and the effect they have on me. This has always been so, even with love songs, which for me are forever informed by the cultural forces acting on us, and this is true of the songs on We Three and Whispers. 
It is because of cultural and political forces that writing about them seem like a natural thing to pursue. What makes it interesting, productive in the sense of having a say; even enjoyable, whether they have any impact, and that they would presents its own hubris, is having a means of personal expression on a public matter or condition. If nothing else it is a marker of our times, an expression of our views and struggles.
And while there is importance in our own internal turmoil and joy, there are all the factors either imposed or embraced that clarify that turmoil. Every genre has its point of reference, of the influences, again cultural and political, that inform what they're trying to say.
So, the project I'm working on now, titled Primitive Desires, will move in a social direction. In some ways it will be a counterpoint to the earlier albums and the fact that while much has changed, much has not and certain topics like race, gender, and privilege continue to burn as we struggle to come to terms with how they are changing and changing us.
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This week's song, Life of a Child, is an instrumental from Life Without Chickens. 

It's a simple piece played on a Korg Poly-800 with 3 parts. It followed Highway Tune and was meant as a kind of elegy to that song, of childhood and its remembrance and loss. The chord progression was something I kind of stumble on; it reminded me of classical pieces I'd listened to, and if I remember correctly, I put it all together in an afternoon. I find it a sad beautiful piece.
You can hear it here, www.mrprimitivemusic.com.

©2018 David William Pearce