Is it bad form...

[Märk]

...to change the original name and inspiration in a love song when the situation changes? I like the song still. The person it was written to, not so much. How would I go about this without feeling like a douchetard?

[ken]

I say you go for it.

I'm having that same problem in that I wrote a lot of songs about not having a girl and/or breakup songs. Now that I'm engaged it doesn't seem appropriate to play them any more.

[Ross]

Go for it - you too ken. In a way all songs are from teh point of view of a character protagonist. If that protagonist is you - great, if it is a past you, great,too. If someone in the audience connects with a former you - you have still connected.

[jast]

I'm with Ross. I also think that being in a different position now gives you a great opportunity to interpret your own song in a different way.

[HeuristicsInc]

ross, that's a great answer.
-bill

[Märk]

Thanks for the replies, guys. I guess the only problem I have is that the song will always be imprinted in my brain as being about her, and changing a few names/words around is not going to change that. Dilemma?

[JonPorobil]

Thanks for the replies, guys. I guess the only problem I have is that the song will always be imprinted in my brain as being about her, and changing a few names/words around is not going to change that. Dilemma?

Billy Joel talks about this a lot, because he wrote several songs explicitly for his first wife ("Just the Way You Are," in particular), and an entire freaking album for Christie Brinkley (An Innocent Man). He still sings most of those songs live, because they're some of his biggest hits. He just has to fake his way through, or somehow dissociate the songs from the women for whom they were written.

Basically, as a musician, you've got to be part actor. So when you sing the song, you gotta pretend you mean it, even if you don't anymore. Do I have to be genuinely sad every time I want to sing a blues song? Do I have to be genuinely happy every time I sing "Rhymes with Lucia?"

If you don't feel it anymore, then you either fake it, either keep singing the song and pretend it means something to you, or phase it out of your live show.

[irwin]

Billy Joel talks about this a lot, because he wrote several songs explicitly for his first wife ("Just the Way You Are," in particular)

I saw a performance he did on TV where he changed the line from "I love you just the way you are" to "She got the house, she got the car".

[Denyer]

You're looking at it the wrong way. Don't change the names, change the parts about loving her to be about smashing her face with a brick and setting her corpse on fire.

[Märk]

I don't want to smash her face with a brick or set her on fire, though.

[Ross]

You just have to connect with the part of you that means it - ever do a cover? You didn't even write that, but you can probably still sing it like you mean it.

[Rabid Garfunkel]

Art is fiction. It can have truths in it, but it's objectively fiction, different to each person who hears it.

Disassociate the lover and become the storyteller, yo.

[HeuristicsInc]

You just have to connect with the part of you that means it - ever do a cover? You didn't even write that, but you can probably still sing it like you mean it.

perhaps not, judging by the gom... kidding! mark did a great brian eno gom for me first year.
-bill