Easy there, emo kid, that's a lot of text. Just show me the songs!

The Past, The Now, The Coming Years

Let me explain my relationship with songwriting over the years. I have always been in love with it. In my youth, I sucked at expressing myself. I had a lot of strong feelings, but I also had the emotional eloquence of an earthworm. It wasn't until I wrote my first song, at age 17, that I realized that I could write my feelings down much better than I could speak them, but if I wrote them down, then I could speak them! So, the joy of writing down what I felt, combined with my new-found love for the guitar, lead to a songwriting adventure. It started out as simply just a way to express the millions of thoughts I had racing through my mind when I should have been speaking, but quickly became a way to express more than just the things I wanted to say.

I hated singing at first. As a child, I used to think I was the best singer ever, until one day I had a baby-sitter who pointed out, after I sang for her, that I absolutely was not. She was wildly correct, and I had not even considered the possibility until that moment. I pretty much hated singing after that. So, when I first started writing songs, I wrote them for my sister to sing. She has a wonderful voice, so it was an obvious choice. Eventually, she encouraged me often enough and I had gained enough confidence to give singing a go. I ended up really enjoying it. Not the greatest voice in the world like my child self had imagined, but good enough for me. My sister and I would sing and perform songs together at an assortment of small shows with big dreams of becoming rock stars of sorts (spoiler alert, we did not become rock stars).

Eventually, I felt that I needed to make a decision; do I want to pursue a career as a musician, or do I want to be able to eat when I'm hungry? If you know me, you know that food isn't actually all that important to me, so this question was actually quite difficult to answer. Being reasonable, but still in love with music, I decided to compromise and try my hand at audio engineering. Maybe I could still make music my career, but just not as a rock star. I tried it out and loved everything about it. I also met my now wife at that school, so overall, huge win. I learned more than audio engineering while I was there though. I also learned that I did not actually want to make that my career, and I got my first taste of programming (which eventually led to my current career as a developer/programmer).

I wrote a bunch of songs while I was in school, but started spending time on other hobbies and interests. The burning need to express myself via song was simmering out. I realized that I was actually happy, and, for me, it's extremely hard to write songs when I'm happy. When I did want to write songs, I could put myself back into that mode, but it was a character, and the songs didn't feel as genuine, so it became harder to write. I still make songs every now and then, but I usually don't finish them. The other hobbies and the lack of "need" for songwriting largely contributed to that. I do, however, still love the idea of making new songs and even compiling some older songs to re-record professionally. I don't think I will ever truly be done making music.

Here you go. I hope you enjoy them :)

Quick note on these songs. Cotton Corners is the unofficial artist name for when my wife and I make songs together. Songs I sang/made with my sister are listed under Jotham & Natasha Yelle.