A Quote by Ravyn Lenae
I put out my first song with no intentions of being famous.
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When you finish a song, your first thought is going to be, 'Is this song a hit?' I hate that we think that way, because it kind of takes a little bit of the meaning out of the songs that are being written, but you're definitely going to think, 'Can this song be put on the radio?'
When I first started writing songs, I was probably about ten or twelve years old, and the first thing you think as a songwriter is, 'Can this be a hit? Can this come out, and people are going to hear the song and like the song, and then they're going to like you, and you'll get famous and rich?' That hasn't changed a bit.
In the realm of pop celebrity, the bar has been lowered so far that there is no bar. People can be famous for being famous, famous for being infamous, famous for having once been famous and, thanks largely to the Internet, famous for not being famous at all.
What's funny for me is that I made a lot of the music I make with intentions of it being a song you listen to, to chill out.
The thing is, the way we write is all jams and bits and pieces that get pieced together and sometimes things are written with intentions of being a song, and then all of a sudden the main riff of this song, six months later turns into a verse or a chorus of another song.
When I was growing up, you would put on a KISS record or a UFO or Aerosmith record and listen to it from the first song through the last song. It's been so long since a band has put out a record like that.
When I put my first song out, I didn't put out any pictures. I just wanted people to hear my music.
But once you've made a song and you put it out there, you don't own it anymore. The public own it. It's their song. It might be their song that they wake up to, or their song they have a shower to, or their song that they drive home to or their song they cry to, scream to, have babies to, have weddings to - like, it isn't your song anymore.
I put out my first song, 'The Other,' in 2015 just on Soundcloud. It was always my most popular song but never really went far in a mainstream way. Then, a couple years after it came out, I watched it go from 8 million to, like, 100 million.
I was in this hamster wheel of being famous for being famous, much like a reality star. You would put me on a talkshow, I would say outrageous things. I was just perpetuating myself as a celebrity, and I found that really empty.
I think when you sign a recording deal, you think, 'I'm going to put out a song and have a hit right away. I'll be a giant superstar. I can take over the world now.' But I put out a song, and it did OK. It wasn't like leaps and bounds.
When I put out my first mixtape, '50 Cent is the Future,' it was the first tape where an artist did the entire tape in song format.
When I first start writing a song, I usually write the title first, then the song, and I'll sing the song in my head and think of a visual of the song. If I can't think of a visual behind the song, I'll throw the song away.
After becoming famous once again - a 1976 song, "Hurricane," even marked a return to protest songwriting - [Bob] Dylan got addicted to drugs, found Jesus, left Jesus, and put out a lot of swill.
While your intentions may be good, this is something every expectant working mom fears - being phased out. I'll put myself out there and admit this has been/is a fear of mine. Let her be the one to decide whether something's too much for her to handle or not.
The fame thing is interesting because I never wanted to be famous, and I never dreamt I would be famous. You know, my fantasy of being a famous writer, and again there's a slight disconnect with reality which happens a lot with me. I imagined being a famous writer would be like being like Jane Austen.
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