Excellence

My goals for the songs I write are simple: well-crafted, enjoyable and meaningful. I have to believe that if I meet those three goals, the songs will find a way into people's lives. Trying to stand out is a sea of faces is very tough. Everyone wants their 15 minutes of fame. I read a couple of things this week that make the point well.

South Arkansas native Odie Blackmon is a hit songwriter who is well established in the business. This week, he posted on Facebook that one of his co-writes (with Bill Deasy) called "This Is My Day" has been picked as theme music for a new Melissa Peterman comedy on CMT called "Working Class". Someone commented about how hot Odie was now and Odie's reply shows the reality of the business even for someone with his credential. He replied, "I'm about as hot as tap water! :) The music biz ain't what it used to be. I wrote this song about seven years ago and it is a miracle that it made it through all the gate keepers. I really had nothing to do with it."

Another side of the "getting my 15 minutes" is something that Nashville calls "gherming" -- taking advantage of people to "move up in line". Songwriter and producer Rand Bishop commented about how the advent of social media like Facebook has created a morph call "e-gherming". He wrote an enlightening blog post about it here.

So how does a no-name like me move up in the ranks? How do I get my 15 minutes? One of the most famous songwriters in history was King David. Songwriting was not his day job, ever. But one of my most favorite comments about him comes from Psalm 78 verses 70 and following (written by Asaph -- David was not promoting himself!) It goes like this:

He chose David his servant
and took him from the sheep pens;
from tending the sheep he brought him
to be the shepherd of his people Jacob,
of Israel his inheritance.
And David shepherded them with integrity of heart;
with skillful hands he led them.

The story line in this scene occurs when David was a very young man and his job in the family was to go out and tend the flocks. The prophet Samuel was sent by God to David's daddy's house to anoint Israel's replacement king. Samuel looked at each boy in the home and thought, "this must be him, he is strong" or "this must be him, he is handsome" and God kept saying, "Nope, not the one." He finally ran out of boys and asked if there was anyone else. David's daddy said "well, there is one out in the pasture." Samuel said, "Go get him." and the rest is, as they say, history.

What does this have to do with my topic? This: the reason David was chosen was because of the excellence of his integrity and the excellence of his work. If I will just focus on those things in my life, songwriting included, God will take care of the rest. So, I will write songs that are well-crafted, enjoyable and meaningful. With God's blessing, they will find their place in history.

Cross-posted from my songwriting blog.