What if everything you ever did was actually the fertilizer for your next creative act?
Could it be that…
Today’s cow pies are tomorrow’s flowers.
Our dark winter’s pasture patties will give rise to tall stalks of green glory next Spring.
Yesterday’s B.S. will be the seeds of great wisdom and new insights someday!
(Feel free to insert your favorite type of fertilizer here. It’s fun I swear!)
Recently, this point was made even clearer to me when talking with the incredibly talented singer-songwriter Clare Maloney
I was complaining a bit about the many songs I’ve started and abandoned and she stopped me in my tracks with this simple response:
Yeah, that’s great. It’s all compost.
She explained that every morsel, scrap, or random idea she’s ever created is now part of the songs she is most proud of singing. In other words, compost is necessary for growth.
What a liberating and helpful way to think about our drafts and incomplete work!
It also happens to be true.
How could it not be true that every exercise in creation helps us in some small way toward our eventual goal?
Closet Full of Compost
Considering my own process for writing music:
It can be fun to sometimes listen back to old demos I’ve made and realize that the chord progression I abandoned last year has been sped up and put into a completely different song.
Lyrics also have a way of falling away from a piece I’m working on and then saved in a big document I call lyrical “Scraps”
I’ve made hundreds of drum recordings, samples, programmed beats, and presets
When I add it up, I’ve been making music for nearly 40 years. No wonder I have so many musical ideas? I have hard drives full of loops, samples, and things that I’ve made often for no good reason.
I even wonder if there might be a gold mine in there of things to go back to for future material. This is beside the main point of Compost however as I truly feel the act of making these compost creations are the practice for what’s next.
However, as I was writing this post, I realized that My friend Michael Shreive even released a very short song I wrote and recorded 25+ years ago on his new album Drums of Compassion.
Drums of Compassion By Michael Shrieve
This is perhaps an example of compost becoming the bones of a finished piece of work! I was even more amazed to read this review by Dave Segal from Seattle’s Stranger music magazine calling out the track I wrote.
Segal writes,
My favorite cut on Drums of Compassion is "The Fierce Energy of Love," an undulating percussion beast that sidewinds with strange syncopations through dense forests and turbid streams to achieve a wild epiphany. The track deserves to be at least four times longer than its 85 seconds.
Dave Segal, The Stranger
This has me wondering about all the compost laying around in my past. While it’s fun to wonder about the gems I may have lying around, I prefer to think about my next creation. At this point, I’m also wholly committed to my current path and the songs I’m writing and recording each month.
My reflection on “Everything is Compost” is that I’m more skilled and experienced as a result of all the many jags and jaunts I’ve taken. Each time I write, practice, experiment, or learn something new, I’m adding to the 53+ year pile of, ahem, Compost.
I recently watched the Songwriter documentary about Ed Sheeran’s songwriting process. I’ve never been drawn to his music, but I find there is wisdom anywhere when you look at successful artists. This quote stuck with me as it relates to the discussion of compost leading to clearer ideas.
“When you stick on an old tap, it runs out muddy water for about a minute, and then it starts flowing clean water,” said Sheeran, “songwriting and doing gigs is like that.”
Ed Sheeran
Picture of Ed Sheeran waiting for clean tap water.
So now I’m curious, after reading this piece…
How are you thinking about your composted ideas?
Can you see your lost causes as a learning environment for future creations?
Could today’s nature nuggets be tomorrow’s home run success?
I can’t stop with the fertilizer fun I’m sorry!
Are we just one more pile of crop candy away from our most meaningful creation yet?
Did I succeed in getting you to think about your meadow muffins a bit differently from here on out?
This is such a great perspective of our past creative work, whether it’s sitting in a closet or lying dormant in our mind. And it’s especially powerful when we reframe all of this stuff as compost — if it’s gold waiting to be mined, I need to be especially precious. The time has to be right. But compost is easy to come by! Reducing the pressure and onus and, indeed, self-imposed sanctity can be liberating. Thanks for the post!
This is such a great perspective of our past creative work, whether it’s sitting in a closet or lying dormant in our mind. And it’s especially powerful when we reframe all of this stuff as compost — if it’s gold waiting to be mined, I need to be especially precious. The time has to be right. But compost is easy to come by! Reducing the pressure and onus and, indeed, self-imposed sanctity can be liberating. Thanks for the post!