My thoughts on music and ego

OK, WARNING #1: Rambling ahead.

Uh, WARNING #2: This post may get pulled tomorrow, as I have a tendency to regret blog posts more than a couple sentences long.Actually, on that point, the purpose of this post is not to be preachy or judgmental. What is the purpose of it? To help me sleep.It’s Friday night, you say, why do I need to sleep? Because I have to get up tomorrow morning to get an oil change, and I stupidly scheduled it for 10am. OK, on with the post…This is something that’s been consuming me lately: music can be entirely way too connected to ego. Don’t believe me? You need to watch YouTube more. OK, but forget the other singers and musicians for a second, I can only talk about myself. I have been struggling with trying to detach my ego from my music. Without getting too personal, as this is a subject I’ve discussed at length with close friends lately, I will say that I detest the idea that I might be motivated to make music for any reason than to express myself. That is - and has always been - my primary motivation and I want to keep it that way.After my last album, I took a break from music for a while (among other things).  I had to take a step back and decide, where do I want to go from here?  What I decided was that the next time I started making music, I would do so completely free from any external factors.  Who would like it, why would they like it, why would I like that they liked it.  It's tricky cause as musicians in this day and age, we have to wear lots of hats, and some of them are business-oriented or what not.  And of course it's natural for artists to want to connect with other people and their audience(s).  But I think it's easy to let that seep into places it shouldn't.I feel that in the past, this connection between my music and my ego has hurt myself and those close to me that I cared about. I can’t go back to that or tend to wounds that old, but I have a lot of regrets. There are people that I miss very much who were affected negatively by my inability to separate the two and to just focus on my “mission” as an artist. I won’t say what that mission is here, but suffice it to say that it’s actually very simple and has nothing to do with my ego.Anyway... I guess I will leave it at this:  When I was a little boy and was writing my first song on my family's old upright piano, I wasn't thinking about how I was gonna meet lots of famous people or get chicks or how I was gonna totally put this up on YouTube.  I was only thinking of the music and what it was communicating for me.  That space - trying to express myself in original and wonderful ways - is where I want to be, all the time, as a musician.  That's the only place that can matter to me.Alright, goodnight moon (I hope)…