Well, I've also written some bloody awful songs, specially when I was in my twenties. Thankfully, they were never commercially released. Interestingly enough, there were usually certain people who liked them regardless, but there's no accounting for tastes. What is really a shocker is when someone you haven't seen in ten years begs you to play one of these castoffs that you swore you'd never play again... It's hard to know just what to say to them, but you can always pretend you don't remember how it goes...

The positive thing about the experience is, that like anything else you do, you get better at it as time goes by, and you learn something useful along the way.

Now the curse of being a famous recording artist is, no one will let you forget those less than stellar songs. They keep coming back like the infamous cat to haunt you. I wonder how many people have asked Murray McLaughlin to sing "The Farmer Song" for them (one of his that I can't stand, though it made him a pile of money...I've written two parodys of it in retaliation for having to put up with it all these years on various radio stations).

I knew a poet in Orillia who would walk up to complete strangers at parties who were examining one of his latest books and say "Don't waste your time on that garbage! I know the guy and he's an idiot. He writes total crap. He couldn't write a good poem if his life depended on it."

He did this because he thought it was funny! Well, it was kind of funny...if you were watching, and knew the score...but it made me wonder about his psychological state, I can tell you! :-)

- LH