00:00And if I look back at my entire 23-year career in music, the ups and downs, the industry battles,
00:09the trials and tribulations, the tears and the cheers and the dogpiling of doubt, the criticisms, both fair and unfair,
00:17the complete loss of privacy, the world tours and the ego wars, and the twists of fate, the absolute magical
00:28chaos of this path that I chose.
00:31When I was too young to remember it ever being a choice at all, songwriting was the easiest thing I
00:38ever did. Not because it didn't take effort. It definitely did. Not that it wasn't frustrating at times, because it
00:49could be.
00:51And not that my songwriting didn't haunt me relentlessly until I cracked the perfect internal rhyme scheme for the third
00:59line of the second verse to the point where my teachers called me out in class for not paying attention,
01:04because that definitely happened.
01:07But when I say that songwriting was the easiest part for me, I think what I mean is that it
01:15was instinctual.
01:18No one taught me how to do it.
01:21I had to be taught how to entertain the crowd and learn choreography and be less annoying and navigate the
01:31industry and fiercely protect my own sanity.
01:34I had to learn all of that over time through difficult lessons and massive amounts of trial and error and
01:40chaos and calamity.
01:42But songwriting for me was pretty much the only thing I ever just naturally did.
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