When I was in high school, I wrote some songs.
As you might imagine, these songs are full of melodramatic teen angst. They are a reflection of how I wanted to be seen at that time in my life.
They are no longer representative of who I am, and that is a good thing. I have outgrown my angst. I am not embarrassed to have written these songs nor of who I used to be, but I am not that person anymore.
While in high school, I recorded several (but not all) of these songs that I had written. I did not believe that I was archiving these songs for the historical record of my life, I just wanted to share my music with my friends. As such, I did not put a great deal of effort into the recording process. Most everything was done in one take. I once broke a string while recording a song, but it was near the end, so I felt no need to record it over again.
It is difficult for me today to take pride in these recordings. It is very difficult to listen to them.
Some of those songs that I wrote in high school are not terrible. None of them are great, but one or two of them are kind of okay. I would not mind making them available somewhere, but the only recordings that exist are of terrible quality.
I have sometimes wondered if I could rerecord these songs today. I could really put some effort into it and use modern technology to make something that sounded good, technically. The problem is, while I have patience to tackle such a project today, I am not sure I retain the requisite angst to do these songs justice. I worry that I would end up capturing merely a caricature of my high school self.
So will these songs ever again see the light of day?
No, probably not. The perfectionist in my head would just not be happy releasing the existing recordings.
While I sometimes wish that I had something to show from that period in my life, I am mostly content to burn the ships and forge ahead.