I don’t know if I’ve ever publicly stated this, much less done so in a full on blog format, but the release of my song “Insomniac” was a traumatic one for me. If you were around at the time & a follower of mine then you would possibly remember that the song, upon its original release, had to be pulled, remastered, & redistributed. All of this was to do with background drama & poor choices that were made against my better judgment & with promises that the decisions being made would pan out & be for the best. Once again, my intuition was right on that, but that’s not what I’m here to write about today.
Last night, while working on something for my socials, I stumbled upon the series of videos that Evan & I created to promote the release of “Insomniac.” These videos stemmed from an idea that I had which I referred to as “things you do when you can’t sleep.” They featured a single shot of someone one would do when they can’t sleep & then about halfway through the 10-20 second video, the intro to the song would cut in, it would pull up a title card & give the date of release as well as a call to pre-save. I remember that we started with a much larger list of activities but ended up cutting it down to nine for the promotion; exercise, watching TV, taking a bath, playing video games, eating, texting, taking a shower, drinking, & surfing the internet. We shot these little blurb videos over the course of several evenings & filled them to the brim with little easter eggs as well, mostly as call backs or little features of the things that I enjoy. For example, the one where I was surfing the web features me going to my website, this website. It also has a “Country Music Allies” pin in the bottom right of the frame, a group that I partnered with for the release of the song. Additionally, I’m snacking on “Smart Sweets” a brand I was all over at the time & there’s an Assassin’s Creed lanyard dangling by the computer, a gaming franchise I enjoy. We put so much thought & curation into these little promotional videos that I don’t feel like people even gave that much of a passing glance to.
What strikes me as odd about “Insomniac” is that for a lot of you it still remains one of your Top 3 songs of mine, despite the fact that it is one of my lowest streaming. Background meddling & a botched release have a lot to do with that. It’s frequently one of the songs I get asked to play in the live setting most often but for the longest time it was the song that I wanted the least to do with, simply because of how grueling a process it was to get it out & how it essentially became dead in the water upon release. Nothing went right with its launch, all the way down to the album artwork file being corrupted upon hours of completion & immediately requiring a do over. I guess that was foreshadowing.
But the more time passes, the more the content from the “Insomniac” era resurfaces, the more it saddens me all over again that this song that Jared Scott, Evan, & I had so much writing, & Joshua Gleave & I had so much producing, ended up as essentially a lost cause simply because of incompetence by those who I was prodded into trusting for its release. Even when we went back in & tried to salvage the song & re-release it, everything got lumped back together & was immediately null & void again. Unfortunately, I think that this was one of the last releases that I went “all out” on with the promotion & the efforts behind it because the project that I worked so hard on & had so much fair in essentially ended up amounting to nothing. I may as well have just cold dropped the song. I guess that comes with the territory of trying to be an artist though.
There are still embers of hope somewhere inside of me that “Insomniac” will have its day. I’m not sure if or when that will be, but I still hold on to its vindication somewhere in my heart.
I understand that art is meant to be, simply, without expectation, but it’s really hard to watch the things you spent countless hours getting off the ground immediately crash & burn with no immediate chance of redemption or salvation. Countless hours, countless dollars, essentially amounting to nothing, it cuts deep.
For those of you out there who tried tirelessly to salvage this song for me upon its release, I am beyond grateful. For those of you who still stream it, who still have love for this song, I hope to be one of you some day soon, it’s just still a very tender spot of my musical catalog for me.
I will continue to revisit this song which I have exiled from my psyche, in the hopes that someday I rediscover my love for it & I hope to someday be at a place where I feel comfortable & convinced to share the full story around the goings on of it all, but until then, I leave it to you all to give the love that it so desperately deserves.
As always, much love to you all,
-C