As Jon Brion once sang, You Gotta Start Somewhere...
The Unceremonious Genesis of a Substack
“To publish a Substack1, you gotta have something to say.”
That’s the negging thought that keeps barking at me, trying to scare me off like some underfed guard dog.
When it sees that, yes, I am still typing, that I do believe I may have something to say, it barks all the more, this time with new venom, with an ALL-CAPS, bolded addendum intended to draw blood:
“To publish a Substack, you gotta have something to say THAT ANYONE BESIDES YOU CARES ABOUT.”
Well, that feels personal and situationally overaggressive. Still, the minor detail of “anyone else caring” has never stopped me from writing songs, essays, end-of-year lists, spec movie scripts, tv spots, failed McSweeney’s submissions, and more—most of which were just me working/wondering/wandering my way through the world. And it won’t stop me now.
So then “The Wonder The Wild.” It’s the title of a song from my most recent album, 2020’s Two-Headed Hearts. The song’s about many things, but chief among them is the idea that we often lose (or, worse, abandon) our sense of wonder as we get older. And sometimes we manicure (and wax and airbrush and Photoshop) all of the wild out too. The song tries to capture that while also trying to recapture the wonder and, yes, the wild.
Creativity—whether it’s songwriting or a love of art, music, literature, writing, design, film—has helped keep both the wonder and the wild alive in my life. And I guess I think this here Substack can serve the same purpose: keep the wonder and the wild alive for me and, maybe if you feel compelled to come with me, for you. I can’t say for certain what any of this will be. Like Joan Didion once wrote, “I don't know what I think until I write it down.” So there will definitely be some making it up as we go. But my general sense, for now, is that it’ll be some things that inspire me, some thoughts in essay form, maybe some song snippets or works-in-progress, probably some overthought lists, some overwrought rants, maybe some playlists.
So, yeah, why not start there? With an ever-changing playlist of songs that are doing it for me in real-time that I decided to start earlier this year. Last updated mere minutes ago.
Here it is in Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6ZBRaLKHJbqcOB2TaSutQM?si=9fa80f32e428434f
And the Apple Music version: https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/my-favorite-songs-lately/pl.u-pMylDqaH29aeb
Compare the two and you’ll see they’re similar but not the same. That’s just because I use both streaming services for weird and complicated and also uncomplicated reasons. And I drag and drop as I go. Whether they match doesn’t really matter to me as much as that they represent what’s working for me. I’m sure Apple Music and Spotify will someday pay me the big bucks to dissect why some songs appear in one service but not the other and vice versa. They know my number (and my credit card number, for that matter).
Take a listen. See if anything creates sparks for you. And, if you feel so inclined, let me know any songs that are hitting the spot right now for you.
Am I doing that right? Does one “publish a Substack”? Or does one “make a Substack” or “write/create a Substack”? Or does one “publish their writings on Substack”? Or do we not invoke Substack at all, ignoring it as the platform, essentially white-labeling it and calling it MY NEWSLETTER? Or is so proprietary that we’ve started using Substack as a verb, i.e. “I Substacked my latest playlist just now”? And does one need to capitalize Substack all the time? I’m new to this. My anxiety and pleaser-ness is spiking as I enumerate the volumes of ways I could do this wrong. So, before I shut it all down and delete my account forever, I’m gonna click CONTINUE and just see what happens.
I'm here for this :)