Trunk Songs

Adam and I were talking about new, ongoing projects.

The sort you produce or ship on a consistent basis. Like a podcast, a blog, a weekly article, a daily story post or fresh material for your act.

As creatives we start with best intentions, determining what we can promise and developing systems to deliver on that commitment.

But life happens, right?

Here’s how you can plan ahead for the day when things go off the rails. For when something outside your control doesn’t go to plan, or when your deadline is approaching and you’ve got nothing. No inspiration, no energy, nada.

For these occasions, I think it’s good to be able to reach into your metaphorical trunk.

Classic American songwriters like George & Ira Gershwin and Cole Porter wrote prolifically. Sometimes they’d decide that a song in one of their shows was good, but didn’t work in that particular moment of the show. They’d write a new song which would go into the show, and the song it replaced would be put into the trunk.

Richard Rodgers called these songs escapees. They’d escaped from the show they were originally intended for in order to find a life for themselves somewhere else.

In a pinch, Rodgers could pull out a song from his trunk if he needed something in a hurry.

As insurance against looming deadlines, when your back is against the wall and you have nothing ready to ship, it’s great to be able to reach into your own trunk and say a big thank you to your former self.

While failing to ship exactly what you had planned can be disappointing, it’s a lot easier to recover from shipping a trunk song that’s not what you originally intended than from not sharing anything at all.

Case in point: Porter’s took a trunk song, originally written for the show “Star Dust” and recycled it for “Anything Goes”. May your backup option be as memorable (if not as hummable) as I Get a Kick Out of You.