Incompletism (A Proposed Idea)

It occurred to me recently, for perhaps the one-millionth time, that the many years of attempting to become a songwriter have littered my life with an astonishing amount of half-written, half-forgotten pieces of music and lyrics that lie on cassettes, hard drives, notepaper, the backs of envelopes, and various other things that happened to be 'at hand' when Sister Muse tapped me upon the shoulder. Many times I've encountered one of these scraps long after it was abandoned and was fortunate enough to mold it into something useful: a complete song. Other scraps were not so lucky.

Whether not in tune with what I was feeling at the moment or sometimes simply too ridiculous to consider of any value, these other bits of unfinished - undeveloped - songs continued to wait patiently for an audition that never seemed to come. Rather than throw them out, I too was hoping their chance at the spotlight might soon arrive, even if it meant the possibility of extreme plastic surgery at the Editor's scalpel, rendering them nearly unrecognizable from their original state. Surely there must be gold in them hills somewhere, Sheriff.

Looking about, it's easy to see that this is not an uncommon dilemma, and has been dealt with most famously and perhaps most successfully by the Beatles who, reportedly, strung together several song fragments into a memorable medley on Side 2 of their Abbey Road album. Another approach seems to be taken by the prolific indie-rock band They Might Be Giants on their Apollo 18 record. Interspersed between 'real' fleshed-out songs are several snippets of songs lasting anywhere from four seconds to a minute. My guess is that these snippets were song ideas that had no further place to go, but that still retained something of value and thus would not have deserved a waste basket fate.

Whatever the case, these quick little ditties are some of my favorites and I think the world is better for having them in it. They've given me thoughts that I otherwise might never have thought, and possibly inspired me onward to create something I might otherwise have never created.

It seems then, that making available ideas that aren't necessarily complete may have a fine purpose, if not to the general public then at least to other artists, be they musicians, writers, painters or what have you.

I propose now the bringing out of your unfinished work for all to see, and initially suggest these guidelines, though rules were made to be broken:

1) If there is a work you have which you don't plan to finish yet can't bear the thought of destroying, bring it out! If it's simply 'in progress' it might be best to keep it to yourself until such time as you're ready to either present it wholly or abandon it completely;

2) If you know you have an idea that can never be completed, bring it out! This applies too to the creation of works specifically designed to not reach completion, works that perhaps are meant to be open-ended to see what the resultant reaction or 'thing that appears' may be.

There. I've said enough for now. More explorations of Incompletism will follow....