You can't make a movie with one person. Maybe you can actually but you definitely need a camera. You can write a book with one person. I think music sits somewhere in the middle. Music is older than the motion picture, the television, the stage, yes, but not older than the book. The idea of story predates even music, if you accept that music requires equipment to make a noise. With no story to tell you have no lyrics, no song, only shop music.
The musician is different to you, especially the independent musician. They travel the country, or the world, with a guitar and a passport. They stay in terrible rooms and travel on terrible transport to play to empty halls using sound equipment that may be out of their control. They have to drag some merch along just to make sure the show breaks even. If there is any money left they most probably drink their way through it with their band, if they can afford one, which they probably cannot.
There is something of a crisis in touring at the moment unless you are Taylor Swift. But anyway, no need to worry. You can't tour without songs, so you have to pay songwriters to do a write with you first. Then you pay some musicians and a studio owner to record the song. Then you pay a photographer to create your cover and those little video snippets that go on streaming services. If you're rich you might make a full-length lyric video for YouTube. Then you put the song on Spotify and get half a cent a week from them. Then someone at Meta turns off your socials for a week, just when you were getting ready to do a launch. God!
What part of that excites you? If I learnt anything in 2025 it is simply that making music is ten times more difficult than writing words. Is that why it is so exciting?
I have to spend 11 months of the year alone in a dark room at a keyboard. Very often I am not typing, I am trying to find stuff to say: I am doing research, or day-dreaming. In month 12 I just put out a few social posts and maybe do a podcast interview or an email Q&A and then I go back into my dark lair. I never perform. I did once, actually, and it was great. But nobody will pay a writer to read out their book for two hours, not unless you are Stephen King. Two hours isn't long enough to reach the end of the story, so you will leave bitterly disappointed on a cliff-hanger.
The reason we love musicians is that for those two hours, they take us away from ourselves, from our normal lives. In the darkness, all you can see is the performer. They are all you can hear. You could film a bit of it, or take some photos, but basically you are trapped in the same way a movie theater traps you. The performer and their music forces you to be present, to focus. Focus is more difficult now than it ever has been before. It helps your mental health to switch off, and music does that for you.
You don't need to pay $750 for a ticket either. If you find a local musician you will get in for maybe $20 or even less. In London, a small gig is the same price as a cinema ticket. You get to meet the singer afterwards, if that interests you. If you're a real fan you can grab a T-shirt or a record to take home as well.
I paid a shade over £20 to see Lola Kirke - a true international star! I will get a copy of Trailblazer on vinyl at least. I will take my copy of her book and hope she signs that, but no worries if not. I get to tell her how much I love her songs. And then she will move to the next person in the line. This is a hundred times more exciting than going to see an author sign a book!
I think in fact that authors could learn a lot from indie musicians in terms of promoting and presenting ourselves: can we share more of our work on email, one chapter at a time, ahead of a full book launch? Can we do more than write on Substack? I have started hosting interviews: could more novelists and nonfiction authors do that?
We love musicians because they are living a dream we are too chicken to live. They take chances, they live life from one day to another and damn the torpedoes. They are desperadoes, troubadours. They are like those cowboys in Western movies who travel from town to town, looking for trouble. They are rebels.
