Why I keep going

Every so often I ask myself in earnest. Not as a crisis, more like checking the oil in the car. I've been at PLANETA GAYFOLK for about two years. I've released 273 singles and more than 280 music videos, I've closed a trilogy of albums and I've opened a new website where everything fits. It would be a good moment to stop. A neat ending, bow and all.

And yet I keep going. I want to try to explain why, mostly to myself, because the reasons I give when someone asks in conversation are shorter and prettier than the real ones.

It isn't about the numbers

I'll say this first to get it out of the way. I don't keep going for the figures. Catalogue figures sound impressive when you say them, but they don't hold me up on an ordinary Tuesday mid-afternoon, when a lyric won't come and the video I'm editing won't either. At those moments, knowing I've got 273 songs doesn't help at all. If anything it weighs on me a little.

Nor do I keep going for some idea of success. I know some people imagine that behind so much work there's a strategy for getting somewhere in particular. Maybe there was one at the start, and I forgot it along the way. Right now, if I had to say where I want to get to, I'd struggle to answer.

I keep going because I still surprise myself

The most honest reason is this: there are still days when I write something I didn't know I was going to write. A line that comes in sideways, a title that makes me laugh, a lyric that starts as a joke and ends up saying something that matters to me. As long as that keeps happening, even now and then, I have reasons to sit down.

Writing every lyric for a project this big could have left me empty. I thought a moment would come when I'd have nothing more to say about gay love, exes, pride or self-esteem. It hasn't come. Every time I think I've said it all, everyday life brings me something else. Another neighbour, another boyfriend, another way of feeling ridiculous or feeling good.

I keep going because there are people on the other side

I don't know how many, and I'd rather not obsess over it. But I know they're there. My audience is in Europe and Latin America, and sometimes I get signs that someone, somewhere I don't know, has heard a song and it's been useful to them. To laugh at an ex, to feel less strange, to put it on with friends before a night out.

Those people owe me nothing and, strictly speaking, I owe them nothing either. But I feel something like a responsibility. If a song of mine kept someone company on a bad day, I like to think there'll be another for the next bad day. It isn't an obligation. It's more a habit I've happily picked up.

That's why I give the trilogy away. All three albums can be downloaded free, no sign-up. If someone wants to step into all this, the door has to be open.

I also keep going because now, at last, everything is in order. For a long time my songs were scattered across platforms and social networks, and that gave me the feeling of filling a bottomless sack. Since mikesaintlouis.com has existed, every song has its page, its full lyrics, its music video and its Spotify link, in Spanish and English. Seeing the catalogue like that, with its search box and its lyrics from A to Z, has given me back the urge to add to it. It's like finally having a bookshelf for the books that used to live in boxes.

There's another reason that sounds less romantic, but it matters. I write, compose, produce and direct. I run my own label, MIKE SAIN'T LOUIS. This is what I do. It isn't a hobby I can drop when I get bored, just as a carpenter doesn't stop making tables because one day a wobbly one comes out.

Craft has one advantage over inspiration: it shows up every day on time. I used to worry that work done without enthusiasm would turn out worse. Not any more. Craft is what lets me be there when the urge does turn up.

What makes me doubt

I don't want this to sound like an anthem. I doubt. I wonder whether it wouldn't be good to stop for a while, let the catalogue breathe, do less and better. I wonder whether the pace of these two years is sustainable, and the honest answer is probably not at the same level. I wonder whether I repeat myself, though I've learnt to live with that question without it freezing me.

I get tired too. I don't hide it. There are weeks when the thought of opening the editing software again fills me with more weariness than excitement. When that happens, I try not to make big decisions. Decisions made from tiredness are almost always worse than the ones you'd make rested.

I don't know what's next. Probably something slower. Maybe more time between songs, more care in each, less hurry. Maybe not. What I do know is that the ideas folder isn't empty, the notebook still has blank pages and there are titles waiting that still make me laugh.

For now, that's enough. I don't need one big reason to keep going. Several small ones are enough, renewed every morning. As long as I find them, I'll be here, writing lyrics in Madrid, deciding what stays and what goes, editing the next music video.

And if one day I stop finding them, I'll tell you that too.

Everything I've made so far is at mikesaintlouis.com.