Brian Bacon Perspective on Softly As I Go

This song is about the remorse we feel about the parts of us that never got to become real: our shadow selves that die for lack of opportunity to express themselves.  It is written like a broken-hearted lost love song.  But really its not about losing love -- it's about not even getting the chance.  And more broadly it's not about a relationship with another person but the way our relationships awaken parts of us we desperately want to grow into and embody.  And...what if that never happens?

I am a songwriter dedicated to making music that rewards lifelong re-listening, not just music that satisfies the moment.  My favorite listening experiences have been the times when I have let myself be immersed by music that feels like its taking me on a journey.  That is what my music is for.  It's meant to be experienced by an imagination.  I use familiar, classic pop song formats but I add surprises in the chord progressions and melodies and I find something mythical in the commonplace subjects I write about.  So my songs feel familiar without being imitative or predictable and each is very different from the next.  

I moved to Nashville to record an album in January of 2023 and it completely changed my idea of what I was capable of creating.  Until then, I had been writing songs that I could perform all by myself at a piano.  But having a producer and a band behind me in the studio enticed me into a much more ambitious sound, closer to my favorite records.

I want them to feel better without asking them to feel like everyone else.  I want them to feel safe accepting their actual feelings.  I think good songs help you "practice" having a kind of catharsis that results in acceptance.  It's a safe way to guide yourself through the whole cycle.  Like a rehearsal for the actual grief (or excitement) that life throws at you.

I think I was lonely before writing became a part of my identity but, certainly in trying to protect my vision I have abandoned cultural trends and over the years this has really made it unlikely that I'll share common experiences with people who have been watching tv and movies thier whole lives and buying cars and houses and moving to the suburbs and just being a passive consumer.  I definitely feel out of place and I think a lot of it has to do with trying to hang on to any hope of having some integrity of vision.  The paradox is that the junk I consumed from television and commercial radio in the 70s and 80s still shows up in my writing (without irony.)  Barry Manilow and the Osmonds have always kind of made me laugh.  I don't know -- in the end there is something even more normative about "being cool" than accepting something dorky about your actual influences.  I'd rather be a dork than be cool if I can't be both.