Round 9

I've never been a designer. I have, however, been the person across the table from one, trying to explain what I wanted while having no idea what I wanted. I'm the villain of this song, and I know it. There's a face creative people make when you say "I'll know it when I see it". It isn't anger. Anger would be too honest. It's a flicker, about a third of a second long, before the smile locks back into place and they say "totally, I'll send you something tomorrow". That face is Round 9. I got hooked on Miyauchi's "Swag" the way I get hooked on anything Japanese and relentlessly cool: immediately and without apology. It sat in my head for weeks, and I kept thinking that its swagger is exactly what a creative needs by round nine. Not rage. Not tears. Swag. The zero-degree calm of someone who has fully detached from the outcome and is now simply delivering. So the client in the song speaks Japanese. Not to be clever, but because client feedback has always been a foreign language. "Not quite right" tells you nothing. "Getting warmer" tells you less. "I'll know it when I see it" is three languages of not knowing, stacked in a trench coat. And the ending, which I've been on the wrong side of more than once: after nine rounds, the client picks round one.

LSLachezar, writing songs so you don't have to cry alone