Social Media Avoidance Project

I have been remiss in posting about the two new songs I’ve already released in 2025!

In 2023 I did that thing where I got a synthesiser and tried to write a song a month for a whole year and release an album in December. I did it, and loved it, and then 2024 came and went with very little creative output. So I decided in December that I’d do the same thing again in 2025, only this time release the songs under the Strangely Shaped By Fathers banner instead of as DaN McKee (as more people listen to SSBF and the self-named release, despite being awesome, is some of my least listened to music) and to release them a song a month instead of all at the end.

As I put the finishing touches on my March song, The World’s Not Worth Saving Anymore, I realised that I hadn’t mentioned the January and February songs on here!

So let’s rectify that.

January saw the release of Right Now

I wrote the song after spending a weekend going down a YouTube rabbit hole with my wife, reminiscing about old 90s industrial music like Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson, and some of David Bowie’s work. I wondered if I could write something in that style?

It was also the weekend that I decided to switch off all my phone notifications, not only for social media, but for the news. I had been debating at work, and online, about why exactly we insist on living our lives so attached to the news-cycle as if we are journalists or politicians and decided I didn’t need it in my life. I switched off the notifications and haven’t looked back. And then I wrote these lyrics:

We are not all journalists

Despite the tempting sound of this

We have no column and no beat

No urgent deadlines to meet


So why do all our phones go ping

With every alert that comes in?

Why do we interrupt our lives

To keep on top of their headlines?


Why all the urgency?

Need for immediacy?

To see as soon as we can see?

All the latest tragedies?


Do

We really

Need to know

RIGHT NOW?


Keep up with the conversation

Hot takes which divide a nation

The quickest comments get liked first

Encourage us to be our worst


They said become the media

And we did, losing who we were

Hijacked the discourse way off course

We need a digital divorce


Why all the urgency?

Need for immediacy?

To see as soon as we can see?

All the latest tragedies?


Do

We really

Need to know

RIGHT NOW?

The song is available to stream on all platforms, and if you want to throw some cash my way it’s here on Bandcamp (though you can download it there for free too!)

February’s song, The Worst is Not, is about confronting the true horror of something. Actually inspired by a health issue, I realised as soon as I released it that it sadly applies just as much to the second Trump presidency and, coming so soon after his inauguration, has been interpreted as that by many who have listened to it.

but the real inspiration is Shakespeare, and a student version of King Lear (Lear Inc) I watched at the Edinburgh Fringe several years ago. The delivery of a particular line stuck with me: “The worst is not, so long as we can say ‘This is the worst’”. The emphasis in the production was on the we. As long as we’re together, lamenting that “this is the worst” it isn’t the worst. The worst would be facing it alone.

The idea had always stuck with me, so continuing on the theme of heavier, industrial rock, I decided to put all my fears and worry into a song for February:

I’m feeling crazy, feeling panicked, feeling very very scared

This time is not like the last time

My head it felt so better when I had it buried under sand

They say that ignorance is bliss

A broken clock will turn out to be right at least two times a day

Still you don’t believe the boy who cried out wolf

The worst is not,

So long as WE

can say

‘this is

the worst’

The monster in the closet isn’t just some naive childhood fear

Sometimes those burning eyes are real

As much as I would like to make believe that things will be alright

I know sometimes that they are not

Every day the world is full of many other tragic tales

of people far worse off than me

The worst is not,

So long as WE

can say

‘this is

the worst’

This

Is not

The worst

This

Is not

The worst

I really enjoyed exploring and producing my screaming voice a bit more. I’m really happy with the results. It’s also available on Bandcamp and elsewhere.

The March song is as-yet unfinished. I recorded all the music last Monday after work, but a bad throat all week (something’s going around school) meant I couldn’t record the vocals. The plan is to do them tomorrow (Monday) and try to mix everything this week. A slower song than the others, the lyrics go like this:

I miss the world I used to know

Though it’s a world I used to hate

For though a better one seemed far

I never doubted it’s our fate

Today that hope seems far away

I look around and blink my eyes

I miss the bad old times we’ve lost

I miss that world I once despised

Because

The world’s not worth saving any more

I think of all the things we learned

How quickly it was thrown away

I once believed we’d found the path

But sadly that was yesterday

Because

The world’s not worth saving any more

The vibe is very bleak, but it’s honest. I see the way things are going some days and just despair. This is that despair articulated in song, and I can’t wait for you to hear it before March 31st…

This post is called SOCIAL MEDIA AVOIDANCE PROJECT by the way, because in my mind that is what this whole collection will be called. Another great thing I’ve done in 2025 is stop checking social media! I’ve only been on it the last week or so for British Philosophy Fortnight stuff, and check my accounts about once a week to make sure I don’t miss anything important. But I’m done with the empty scrolling. And this project has been a way of weaning myself off it. When I feel the need to grab my phone and kill time, I have a notes file instead. I’ll write a poem, a bit of text, or a lyric. These are the lyrics that are becoming my monthly songs.

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