One of the past decade’s more prolific and influential songwriters, Nick Cave of The Birthday Party and Bad Seeds fame here shares the nine primary bedevilments which stand in the way of songwriting and creative flow, as well as looking at how best to overcome them.
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In this most recent post to MusicThinkTank, contributor Will Marshall outlines Nick Cave’s nine primary bedevilments which so often befall the musician as they work through the creative process.
“Indecision, or dithering, is a fantastic way to avoid achieving anything. It’s usually driven by fear, and manifests as an inability to decide what to do, making it impossible to do anything. Fundamentally as artists, we all find ourselves retreading the same ground and worrying about making the “wrong” choice.
Indecision often manifests right before starting something: a new project, a day in the studio, new sketches for a composition, even new band photos. In the absence of a clear plan, we can find ourselves uninspired, cycling between possibilities, unable to commit to any of them. Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, a Prussian general, famously said:
‘No battle plan ever survived first contact with the enemy.’
One could equally say: “No plan ever survived first contact with reality.”