One of my best friends sent me a song via iMessage the other day.
It was sang by one of my favorite artists, Dominic Fike.
I have this really bad issue with never taking people's entertainment recommendations. For example, whenever my friends send me an album to listen to, a Netflix series to watch, a podcast, a movie, anything, I rarely follow through with listening to or watching whatever they send me. There are times I do, but those times are far and few between. 9/10times I tell them straight up, "Hey, love ya, but I'm probably not gonna watch/listen."
I'm just not a TV person or a podcast enthusiast. I do loving listening to music, but the music I listen to is usually directly related to the mood I'm in. So, unless the melody is matching my current vibe, chances are I'll save listening to your recommendation for a rainy day, and we all know how that story goes.
This instance was different.
I first got into Dominic Fike's music a little over a year ago. I watched his documentary detailing how he got famous and where he got his start, and that began my Dominic Fike obsession. I listened to his songs on repeat for months. I couldn't stop. I listened to him at the gym, in the car, on walks, while I was cooking, everywhere.
I feel attached to his music for a lot of reasons. Mostly because he represents a very specific, distinct time in my life when I was living out in Utah. I feel like I've lived through massive transformations that usually happen to people over the course of years or even a lifetime, but for me, my transformations are usually packed into a few months' span when I'm actively aware that I'm becoming someone else. Taylor 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, and beyond.
When I left Utah and got back home to Massachusetts, anytime Dominic Fike's songs came on my Spotify playlist, I immediately skipped them. I couldn't listen to him for a very long time. His music brought me back to a time that I felt unconnected to and so estranged from, and I just couldn't bare the emotional toll it'd take on me to listen to his songs. So I didn't.
Except, things changed about a month ago. I was driving in my car, and his song, "3 Nights", came on my playlist, and for the first time in many, many months, I didn't feel the need to skip his song. I let it play. From start to finish. And then I clicked to one of his albums, pressed shuffle, and listened to him sing to me for the rest of my car ride. Something in me was ready to hear him again. Ready to feel what his music made me feel all those months back, and I knew in that moment, I was on the brink of my next chapter. I quietly listened to his lyrics and thought to myself, "welcome home".
So, when my friend sent me Dominic Fike's song the other day, I took her recommendation of listening to it because, as I've explained, I've been in the Dominic Fike mood. Funny how things line up like that.
It was a song from Euphoria, and I don't watch Euphoria, obviously, so I had no context whatsoever when I first listened to it, but that doesn't matter. What matters is how connected to it I felt, how I didn't want the song to end, how beautiful the lyrics were, how entrancing it was to experience someone so poetically and musically inclined share a piece of his heart.
And it made me think... there will never be too many good songs. There will never be a cap to good music.
I could name a million and one songs I like/love. Anytime I hear a good song, I don't think, "That's it! No one could ever make better music than this!" I also never think, "I like this song, so I can't like any other song I hear after this one."
One of my favorite parts about life (truly) is knowing that good music will always be on the horizon. I will always find a new song to jam to and sing to at the top of my lungs. There will be new albums and new artists I listen to on repeat in the future. Even when I feel like I'm in a rut with what I've been listening to lately, that rut will end. And, just to note, "new" doesn't always have to mean "new". It can also mean "old" but "new" to me. There is no difference in my book.
But the coolest thing about this entire idea that was triggered by listening to the song my friend sent me the other day, is this:
There will never be too many anything. There is room for all of us.
I used to think that certain fields, industries, niches, what have you, could be saturated.
"There's so many good makeup artists, football players, celebrities, you name it."
But I've never, not once, thought, "There's too many good songs." That's just never crossed my mind.
And that's how I see life now. Just because one good song is produced and released doesn't mean another good song can't be produced and released. The world could always use another good song. The limit truly does not exist.
So what does this have to do with anything?
You can't count yourself out just because there are a lot of people in your space doing what you want to do and doing it well. You never know when you're gonna show up and perform and someone is gonna look at what you have to offer and think, "I've been waiting my whole life for you." That does not discredit anyone before you or anyone after you. Likewise, anyone's success in your field or niche has nothing to do with you.
Good songs were made before you came along. Good songs will be made after you leave. Don't let those be the reasons you gip the world from hearing you sing.
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