writing for someone who won't hear it

i wrote a song about someone who will never hear it. not because they're gone — they're not. because we don't talk anymore, and the song is about the version of them i knew, which is a version that no longer exists even for them.

i've been thinking about whether that changes anything about the song. whether a song needs a listener to be complete. whether writing for someone who won't hear it is a different act than writing for someone who will.

i don't think it is. the song is the same song either way. what changes is what i'm doing when i write it. if i know they'll hear it, i'm writing toward them — toward their reaction, their recognition, the moment they understand what i meant. if i know they won't, i'm writing toward something else. the truth of the thing, maybe. the version that doesn't need to land anywhere.

there's something freeing about that. the song doesn't have to do anything. it doesn't have to explain itself or be understood or make someone feel a particular way. it just has to be accurate. and accuracy, when you're not performing for anyone, is easier to find.

the open mic taught me this. you play for a room of strangers and you realize that the songs that land are the ones that aren't trying to land. the ones where you forgot to be strategic about it. the ones where you were just saying the thing. fine art practice has been writing about this — the relationship between audience and honesty in songwriting.

the song about the person who won't hear it is one of the most honest things i've written. i don't know what to do with that information. i'm not sure it means anything except that the absence of a listener sometimes creates the conditions for the truest version of the song.

more on this at singer-songwriter work. the question of who you're writing for — and what happens when the answer is nobody — is something digital mysticism has been circling. and the technical side is worth reading if you make things for people who may never see them.