Whose decision is it that the other songwriters are better at expressing this one dude’s experiences? Thats not an objective question. It is a choice.
Writing is hard, and there are very good reasons people work with experts to make things about themselves.
Related, have you ever seen this clip? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4Y6zimxi-Q
Upon reflection, I think you are right.
> writing is hard
Oh definitely. I’ve certainly had the experience of Lin-Manuel Miranda expressing something more clearly than I can.
It would have been sometime in the late 2000s and I was visiting dear old dad in Christchurch, NZ, and my buddy James, aka Lawrence Arabia was playing a gig at the Wonderbar in nearby Littleton on Christmas Eve. I happened to meet a nice young lady, shit you not, named Eve, and we ended back at her place… her parent’s place. At 2am on Christmas Eve. Then her dad comes down and finds us fooling around on the couch in front of the tree. My ride had left hours ago so I had to call up pops. Surprisingly he was very pleased with my escapades and not too bothered with the wake up call.
Here’s James’s take on the event: https://fabulousarabia.bandcamp.com/track/give-me-love-tonig...
While it’s a fine song, it is definitely not his best, and I’m sure he’d admit that it is not as good as my better ones!
It is, however, better than my song about that night: https://williamcotton.bandcamp.com/track/eve-of-eve
My wife and I, complete strangers beforehand, were two of maybe 15 people who went to see James play at a small bar in SF about ten years ago. That dude has been getting me laid for decades!
Anyways, unless I happen to steal a steam engine high on cocaine or some other act of epic folklore there’s no chance in hell that some songwriter out there is ever going to write a better song about my life than yours truly.
If it somehow happened it would be an amazing honor.
Let's follow the thread here. We have an article about learning to be OK with not being extraordinary. We have a comment about the article stating that you can be the best at something, you just need to find your niche. Then we have someone who says it's wrong to lie to people about being able to find a niche. Then I point out that for something like songwriting there is indeed a niche if you're writing about things that are personal. Then this person calls that a coping mechanism and says:
I bet there are lots of songwriters who could make songs about your life that the vast majority of people would agree are better than yours
Well, funny enough, I do know a very talented and accomplished songwriter and he happened to write a song about a memorable night. I happened to write a song about that same memorable night. It's a good enough story that it inspired two songs to be written, professionally recorded, mixed, mastered, and put onto albums with artwork and all of that hoopla and I'm not skittish about retelling a brief synopsis. Tragically, I say that James' song is actually better than my song about the event!
The only song that James has ever written about me is something that triggers your insecurities. Normal adults can indeed mention topical memorable nights like this in casual conversation. Normal adults can joke about "getting laid"... with their wife. Do you get why I added the part about my wife? We literally met at one of James' concerts.
Can you now see the poetry in all of this?
edit: also probably untrue, I bet there are lots of songwriters who could make songs about your life that the vast majority of people would agree are better than yours