Song Confessional

Walker Lukens: Hey, this is Walker Lukens, and you are listening to Song Confessional, the only podcast that turns your stories into new original songs, your anonymous stories. Let me explain what we do here at Song Confessional. So we travel all around the world collecting anonymous stories, right? We choose our favorite ones.

We, we call these confessions. We give these confessions to songwriters who write and record an original song based on your story. Now, normally on this podcast, you hear that anonymous story, you hear the song inspired, and you, and you hear an interview with the songwriter. Well, not on this episode because this is Confession Call number six.

What we do is we release a confession out into the universe, and then you, songwriter, or your friend who’s a songwriter, or your parent who’s a songwriter, or your neighbor who’s a songwriter, can write a song and submit it to us by August 30th and become the winner of Confession Call number six. What does the winner get?

Well, cool you asked. I’ll tell you. What the winner gets is they get to perform at our show on September 3rd at Hole in the Wall. I’m gonna play, uh, Other Vessels is gonna play, the winner of Confession Call number five, and potentially you, who’s listening to this. So we’ve got the submission link in our show notes, and, uh, y- you know, I wanna stress that it’s not important that you send us, like, a world-class studio grade demo.

You can just send us a voice memo. You can send us an acapella recording. You could email me, uh, and I might give you my phone number, and I’ll just record our phone call where you play it for me over the phone. We just wanna hear the bones of the song, okay? All right, I’m getting ahead of myself because you gotta hear this confession.

Now, we get all sorts of confessions in at Song Confessional. This one is from somebody who’s come in with a bit of a love quandary, and they need some advice. This was collected from our permanent confessional booth at the Long Center. It’s from a young songwriter who is, is deep in that young songwriting dream of this is your whole life, and everything kind of revolves around it, and you will do anything for the sake of your songs.

Um, now, what I’m describing might sound to you like some sort of rock and roll cliché, and it is. But it’s also amazing. So, so, uh, I’m excited to see what people get out of this confession. I was definitely taken back… Well, first I was taken to this, this quote inside of the liner notes of Leonard Cohen’s first record, where he says something like, “Most songwriters would be embarrassed to admit what they do for the sake of a song.”

Uh, which is so true, um, because, you know, you’re really a glutton for punishment when you’re a lyricist. But it did remind me of a lot of, um Cool memories I made for myself early on in my life. Okay, anyway, well, without further ado, here’s our confession.

Confessor: Confession. Gotta get this off my chest. I started working this guy- with this guy who played fiddle in my band last year, and I had a boyfriend at the time, and we started making this EP together, and it turned out that the girlfriend he had told me he was on a break with was actually living in his childhood bedroom in the middle-of-nowhere Vermont in a twenty-foot-by-twenty-foot square house, which I didn’t even know existed, with his parents, working for his parents, working for his family’s business, waiting for him to come back and graduate.

So obviously, I didn’t know what to do with either my feelings for this person or the fact that we were working on a record together. Uh, so I thought about that for a while, chose to forgive him since he told me he broke up with her on his three-day road trip back to Vermont after they graduated, uh, at which point I had met her, and it was a whole weird thing.

Then I went and visited him in Vermont, realized this was a terrible situation, told him that I needed to, you know, not have this be a, an entanglement, but I would like to finish working on the record. And he just stopped talking to me, never sent me the stems for several weeks, and I continued being in love with him, bugging him, eventually got them, made the EP that I have.

Unfortunately, he had introduced me to a friend who was another sound guy who I started talking to at the time, became very close with. Um, he broke up with me while I was in the process of writing my senior music thesis, and, uh, so that influenced that songwriting, and now he wants to co-produce it with me.

I think I know the answer, but maybe you could tell me with your professional opinions. Thank you.

Walker Lukens: Okay, well, there’s no reason to take shots at a lay, uh, priest, uh, who’s just trying to help you, okay? Uh- This is a doozy. I mean, clearly you sh- no need to be dating either of these fellas. Um, but sure sounds like you got some good songs out of it, or at least we can hope so.

We’re gonna get some songs out of it on your behalf. It would be so sick if you also submitted a song, uh, dear confessor. Uh, once again, you have until August 30th to submit this. Th- in our show notes, you will find the submission form. The winners, we’re gonna choose a few, they’re gonna perform at Hole in the Wall on September 3rd with me and with, uh, other vessels.

Uh, we’re gonna make a live podcast episode out of it, and it’s gonna be an awesome night. So guys, pass this along, get this in the hands of the best songwriters you know, and let’s do this thing