Today in an interview I was reminded once again of one of the reasons why the Song Of The Week is so appealing to me. It’s because the songs I post here just don’t seem to have a home anywhere else. For one reason or another, they don’t fit into the sequence of a record I’m about to put out, whether it be because of genre or quality. If I write a power-pop song for fun, it’s not going to end up on a record. There will never be a cover song on a Small Sins record. (Actually that might be a lie: Steve and I have been talking about covering The Monks’ ‘Bad Habits’ from start to finish one day. I digress.) 

The point is that for the most part, these songs don’t have another home besides right here on this page. This song is the ultimate example of that. I wrote this rock song awhile back, but fought it and fought it. It’s a full on guitar rock song, and is that what I’m supposed to be about? Is that what Small Sins fans want to hear from me? No.

But the song is so damn catchy. I wasn’t even trying to write it. These words came to me by accident, and no matter how I tried to produce it, it just kept working only as a rock song. It’s frustrating to have to dump something so catchy because you’re supposed to fit into a certain genre of music, but it happens. This song could be a hit..... for someone that ISN’T me.

And I guess that’s been one of my struggles as a musician. Bands that do well are bands that are easy to market. Press needs to be able to classify you so they can write about you. They have to be able to say what you sound like. And for fans to introduce you to other fans, they need to be able to talk about you in the same way. They need to classify what you are in order to be able to have that conversation with a friend.

Yet as hard as I try to make concise records, it never really translates that way. What is the Small Sins sound? Turns out it’s a lot of things. For a song like ‘Deja Vu’ to be on the same record as a song like ‘Everything You Need’ is kind of crazy. It’s all over the place genre-wise, and makes me harder to classify. And that’s on a record where I’m trying to be consistent!! Just imagine if I stuck a song like this one on the last record. Then you would all be REALLY confused.

So, a good song gets scrapped because it just doesn’t fit in anywhere. It’s a shame, but these things happen. I wish that some rock band would cover it one day, and the song could find its rightful home. Like all of us, it needs to find its niche. Sad really, but at least we can enjoy it here.