Dissatisfaction

June 30, 2022

Our Ukraine song is finished. Hans added a few little things - a handful of bass tones and apocalyptic drones in the bridge. Otherwise there´s just Jin's piano and my voice. Till tried around for a while to find a suitable guitar line. But in the end he thought that the song was just better without guitar. That's something I really appreciate about Till. He can take a step back and even do nothing at all if it's good for the song.

We showed the result to Ava right away - and maybe we shouldn't have done that. She was quite taken with it. And thinks it would be best to release it right now. At the moment the Ukraine issue is still omnipresent. In a few months nobody would care anymore. Besides, the song´s imagery fits best into summer. The rest of the band is not averse. Jin is still freshly in love with the song and would love to show it to everyone right now. Till sympathizes with Ava's reasoning. Even Hans, who´s normally always hesitant when it comes to releasing something, voices only tentative reservations.

So now it's up to me. And everything in me is fighting against it. Isn't the topic much too heavy and indigestible? Is a piano ballad really a good first song for a band like us? Those are the half-baked arguments I use as an excuse. But behind them lies a deeper unease that I can't quite put my finger on. I really like the song. And yet there is some kind of diffuse dissatisfaction. I think it's about me, my own performance. There's something not right about it, but I can not really say what it is.

That's bothering me quite a bit. I feel the pressure from Ava and the others who would like to get things going now. But it feels like I´d be betraying myself if I gave in to that. I don't know what to do.