songwriting as therapy, songs about bad things, country depressed

been trying to flesh out the rest of the next cd, and get back to writing about things that matter. been researching a few things that have come to mind for songs - and it may well be that i should just have the black brick wall as the album cover. cases that came up at the antiwar conference this last weekend have stuck in my head and i'm getting pretty damn sick of reading about people getting blown apart, raped, kidnapped, tortured and generally being subjected to the consequences of the actions of "my government".

last night a friend said something about how i had a good attitude about recent events in my personal life and at least i had my songs for therapy. had to point out that the only part of the song's life that counts as therapy is the writing process. learning, playing and singing them is like poking yourself in the eye or some other unpleasant process. perhaps they can serve as therapy for others who can relate to the story being told, or for those who enjoy feeling bad.
was pondering this morning whether my songwriting makes me a masochist for repeatedly reminding myself of things or people who hurt me by singing them- or perhaps a sadist, for having written the songs in the first place, knowing damn well i will at times have a hard time performing them.

beyond the personal songs,  i guess when one is a political songwriter there are going to be some grim ones - especially in times like this. there are times that i have a real hard time performing 'victor jara' (arlo guthrie) or the 1913 massacre (woody guthrie) - but i still think they are important songs that should be sung. i just hope i can manage to craft something that is worthy of being sung, even if it does make people squirm or cry. the real challenge will be finding a way to turn at least a couple out that are more in the vein of draft dodger rag.

so back to the therapy rap - a woman at the conference said , as a therapist, her opinion was that america is in a depression, emotionally, and is having a hard time getting up off their asses and moving forward. the task i'm giving myself is to write songs to help those who hear them get up off their asses collectively and start doing something to change the state of the world.
time to start channeling phil ochs or abbie hoffman.

it bothers me that most of my heroes have ended up killing themselves.