How To Deal With Aunt Sally's Unsolicited Advice At The Holidays

Williams Poor Valley Homestead Front Porch View

Why don't you just... ?

... so begins every well meaning holiday visitor about what they think you should be doing with your music.

Hint - it's always ever so delightful to hear the uninformed, pompous and eagerly stated advice from people who have no basis of knowledge except what they heard on social media tv.

In other words, it most likely involves eye rolling, trying out for a TV show, starting a podcast, using content as a lure, or the new guy on the block, "why don't you just use AI?"

Lovely thoughts all around, really.

But for the songwriters among us, the artists lurking in the shadows around the water coolers and cocktail tables... these are not solutions.

For us, the write or die handful, the cure is in the silent moment stolen from prying eyes in the receptive quiet of our tangled minds - grasping, hurting and unfolding its way to liberation - pen on page.  This we live for - this is the way forward.

But frustration, that unwelcome bedfellow, sticks its head up and blathers in the form of Aunt Sally unsolicited advice ever so much more at the holidays, when friend and foe and family mingle around the dinner table, smiling and chewing between breaths of telling you how to succeed in the new music business.

Sigh.  Here are a few Williams family favorites and a new one for your consideration.

Dad's favorite go to response to his tormenter (Mamaw Manis) when she asked, "Sell any songs today?" Was to:

• grit teeth

• smile and let out an explose of air - cross between laugh and shout

• say, "Not today!"

• change subject

Also a Kim Williams favorite (yes, they gave him shit too, before he had more hits than they could count):

• grit teeth

• smile through said teeth and say "Thank you very much" in a pleasant tone

• Leave the room as quickly as possible 

The new one we like is:

• "I'd say most pros are about as worried as Picasso was about a coloring book."

• Laugh!

• Change subject

Happy writing!

Thankful this holiday season and looking forward to a prosperous, rewarding new year.