Song of the Month - "Play the Hits" - Branches Breaking from the Weight
I started playing bass guitar 40 years ago, and for the first 20 years of what we’ll call my artist life, the goal was to become like my musical heroes—get a “deal,” make records, tour. The second 20 years has featured an almost entirely different model for finding an audience for my work.
Which brings me to “Play the Hits,” the Single of the Month for February 2023 and the final Single of the Month from Branches Breaking from the Weight.
“Play the Hits” was the second set of lyrics I wrote for the album, after “Kingdom Come,” and from the time I wrote it, I thought it would be the first track on the album. There was just something anthemic about it, and I really liked the approach to lyric writing, in particular, the line, “Take the gig, but the money is never that great.”
I felt like the line spoke for virtually every gig and event I’d scheduled since I’d started self-publishing and promoting my work in 2003. I’ve often said that the over/under of every public event I’ve had in the promotion of three self-published novels and three self-released solo albums is five. If I got more people in the audience than five, it was—relative to my efforts—a well-attended event. If I got fewer, it was not well attended. Five is certainly enough people to have some fun with, but it’s far from the number you’d need to make a living promoting your novels and music.
As such, it became clear to me early on that, despite enjoying the promotional aspects of writing books and making CDs, without the involvement of a traditional publisher or whatever, I was never going to make a living at it. I had to deal with the fact that I didn’t have a certain something that drew people to my work. That was okay, but it meant I had to be realistic about the limited path for an aspiring career.
In short, I loved and still love to create books and music. I enjoy utilizing new ideas and technologies to promote my work, but in the end, I’m not much of a promoter. A promoter would look at two avenues of promotion, one that yielded 5 sales and one that yielded ten, and choose to repeat the latter. I dig sales—seriously, buy something at my website right now—but I’ve never been able to repeat a promotional activity just because it happened to yield more sales. In short, when it comes to promotion, I like to do what I like to do, and if I don’t like to do it, well, there you go.
Back to “Play the Hits.”
I really liked Bret and Kevin’s hunk, and it inspired in me a piece about what it’s been like to self-promote my work over the past couple of decades aspiring toward some kind of writing/music career. I’m this guy from the latter 20th century when it comes to thinking about how books and music get promoted, and we’re now in the third decade of the 21st. In this century, the marketing of your creative work requires an entirely different set of skills (self-promotion), but many are still hardwired for the old distribution world (get a deal). I’ve whittled away at the concept of getting a deal over two decades of self-distributing my work, and I think I’ve pretty much adjusted to the new way, as evidenced by the first verse of “Play the Hits”:
I have not learned anything
After all the times I’ve stormed the ramparts.
Another fine Econoline idea
Will always stir me in my man parts.
As juvenile as those lines are, they reflect something about the promotion of my work that has kept me alive and excited for its distribution into the world for 20 years. I’m always looking for the next fun way to get my work out, to surprise my listeners and readers, to stretch beyond my own limited concepts of “book” and “album” to something that makes me want to storm the ramparts again.
I’ve got a great idea for my next project, which I seek to bring your way later in 2023. These types of ideas can fizzle, but I hope this one doesn’t. I’ll have more info soon.
For now, thanks for reading the Song of the Month series, and for your time and attention these past two decades. I’ve enjoyed it, and I hope you have, too. I also hope I’ve earned your attention for my coming endeavors. Yes, they’re still coming.
But why wait until later to support me? If you like “Play the Hits,” please consider purchasing Branches Breaking from the Weight. It’s only $10, you get it right now, and your support helps keep us creating new music.
Art, I always like reading these! Kurt