It’s fun to do bad things

№57 — Scum vs. Scum (demo)

organizing an accident is a once-weekly newsletter where I leak home demos of unreleased songs, first draft lyrics, thoughts on the creative process, and dispatches from music life in Paris.

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Listen to “Scum vs. Scum” (demo):

This song was written on May 24, 2019

Spring allergies, New York 2019. Photo by George Barnett

My favorite thing about making a lot of music is mitigating not only creative anxieties, curiosities, and 'what ifs' but even more so the preciousness that can surround any particular piece of work. The more expansive our output, the lower the stakes. All of our artistic hopes and aspirations do not hang solely on one song, album, or project. The more we exercise the muscle of songwriting and improvisation, the greater our sense of creativity’s infinite nature. The chances of catching something meaningful are only elevated by the laws of probability.

It’s science, man.

While I’m always interested in exploring new musical ideas, I could never be content working with the same tools or style in perpetuity. Much of what my newsletter is about involves sharing the different shades of this process, something I couldn’t have imagined doing a few years ago. Take today’s song, for example. By letting my ideas go, both through their conception and later by sharing them here, I can move forward and better understand the various iterations of my artistic yearning. ◍

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Lyrics written in May 2019

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From the vault

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What I’m listening to this week

• Yusuf / Cat Stevens - Tea For The Tillerman

• Mink DeVille - Return To Magenta

• Rick Rubin - The Creative Act: A Way of Being (Audiobook)

What I’ve been reading

• Cormac McCarthy - Blood Meridian

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You can pay a visit to my previous demos and writing via the Substack archive + find my official music releases on Spotify, Apple, or your platform of choice. Stalk me across socials at @thisryanegan.

With love,

Ryan

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