I try not to play the "I'm a musician" card very often, mainly because I'm not a very active one anymore, but I do really relate to this particular issue.

When I was younger, I used to write and record music prolifically. Between the years of 2001 and 2006, I probably recorded 10-15 projects of various lengths with various people, and played live constantly. When I started dating my wife late in 2006, things slowed considerably--partially because, once it became serious, I just didn't have the same kind of time to sit with my guitar for hours on end and compose, but mostly because that compulsion to create just wasn't there anymore. When at my most active, getting those songs out at times felt like a matter of life and death; once what would eventually become my family life began to take shape, the compulsion to create became increasingly more a case of simply being a creative person who enjoyed working on creative things rather than a conduit for some kind of do-or-die self-expression. Eventually, I became what, in a loose sense, my art lamented that I wasn't.

I'd recommend the book "This is Your Brain on Music" by Daniel Levitin to anyone interested in the psychology of the art form. There's a great section in there about music as a sexual fitness characteristic which I really found myself relating to. Basically he argues that, on a subconscious level, the evolutionary purpose of music is to signal to prospective mates (a) intellectual fitness, which people lacking in physical prowess not uncommonly play up in their own identities, and (b) that you have enough resources (food, clothes, shelter) to waste time perfecting a purely unnecessary skill. Until I read this, I don't think I'd realized how much of my desire to succeed as a musician was rooted in my desire to pick up chicks. It seems like the kind of thing that people who fancy themselves "proper artists" should be above, but I wonder how much of it is always there on some level. At the very least, it does seem like some of those creative signals tend to get crossed when that function is no longer prevalent.

This is obviously just one person's experience, and plenty of examples exist to the contrary. Food for thought nonetheless.

I do agree that needing to work stuff out is probably a great motivation to make music, btw. I'm just arguing that it isn't necessary to make good music.

I think Kevin Davis brought up a good point there (someone's gonna call me out for agreeing with him again). But I also think stip, and maybe this is just a matter of perception, is boiling it down to much of a sad vs happy musician::good vs bad music.

I suspect that a huge driving force behind art isn't necessarily mellowdrama and being "down", but not having the things you really want out of life. If your art is tied to your life journey (that was painful to write), then wouldn't it make sense for it to settle down with you?

"And they lived happily ever after" is a beautiful thought, but it doesn't leave you with anything interesting anymore.

Is any one arguing otherwise?

A good artist should be able to tap into something beyond their personal experience.

... but you also don't need to be in a horrible place to write about those things either. again that is what empathy and imagination are for. Charles Bukowski did all his best writing recalling a very dark place. Tom Waits wrote very similar stuff imagining a very dark place.

I guess i'm responding to the 'they won't make a good album anymore since they're happy' argument.

Was anyone making that argument?

eddie vedder was highly attuned to the struggles of youth entering adulthood and therefore wrote great songs related to such matters. while his priorities have changed as a naturally maturing adult, so have ours. the earnestness of his greatest lyrics don't strike much of a chord with people in their thirties anymore, as most of us have naturally matured as well. he can write about other things well, stuff that's more identifiable to his age/our ages, but he's simply not as adept at it as the subject matter mentioned at the beginning of this post.

This reads like a dkfan post

It's not an absolute but the evidence suggests this is the case in a lot of areas, Stip.

i should probably start a blog.