I’m learning about the art of advertising. After my original post on the topic, my ears and eyes have been more keenly tuned to this creative ‘form of expression.’  For example, this gem…

Because if she is the Certified Solar Installer (CSI..?.. really?) then the chances of a few guys discovering a new and urgent interest in solar energy have greatly improved.  And that’s advertising…  because we all know she isn’t a Certified Solar Installer; she’s far to busy searching for you on Facebook to do anything else.

And so my mind takes in this fine example of advertising and begins to process through ways I can and should take advantage of my new knowledge:  How can I draw people to my work using images that have no logical relationship to that work or to me?

And then it hit me:

——

I think I’m catching on.

“Cliche is the enemy.  Cliche tells listeners (or readers) that you either do not know enough or care enough about your topic to communicate in more imaginative or energetic language.”

I wrote that to myself in a moment of clarity so that, whenever I was temped to simply lean on what “works” as a songwriter, I’d remember to wait.  This comes up again as I arrange the songs for this covers project. I am continually struck by the depth of creativity writers like Aimee Mann, Trent Reznor and Tom Waits bring to their craft.  Much of the reason these songs have rested so long in my soul is that they have given life and shape to thoughts, feelings, concepts.. realities.. that had either been shapeless or non-existent before my listening.  The word was sung and new things were formed in me; grief, healing, peace… old things were revived or reshaped; friendship, trust, courage..

I long for my work to do that.

In “Hopeful Imagination,” Walter Brueggemann writes: “I suspect that we lose vitality… when our language of God is domesticated and our relation with God is made narrow and predictable.”  I take this to mean that the pervasive use of cliche images and words to communicate, examine or celebrate ones relationship to or experience of God is much more serious than being simply a songwriting problem; It is reflective of a disconnect between artist and subject.  Quoting Bruggemann again: “Predictable language is a measure of a deadened relationship in which address is reduced to slogan.”

Cliche, at its worst, is the evidence of a compromise having been made in order to accommodate the Market’s desire to appeal to what is safe, unchallenging and strictly sellable.  Certainly, marketability is not an evil in and of itself; but should it become the driving force behind my creative choices, I am no longer making art, I am only making a product,.. a slogan; that it is, in fact, more important to make something sellable than to make something beautiful.

My experience of life has been varied.  My understanding of God has been characterized by passion, imagination and vitality.  I want my art to reflect this.