15. Creative Differences (Or: How I learned to Stop worrying and let you explode)

Cristian Velasquez, Kaira Gula, & Sydney Lefkof - 2025 LIU

The title of this song takes its cue from one of my all-time favorite films: Dr. Strangelove (Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb). I also thought “creative differences” was cheeky given that’s the usual public reason given for artistic breakups. 

I’m genuinely curious how people will end up referring to the songs with the long names. In rehearsal, I would just called it “the breakup.”

I was on the road with the Rent 20th Anniversary Tour when I picked up an absurdly thick Van Gogh biography.  One of those books that could double as a weapon. I’d read it in transit, during downtime, whenever I could steal a few quiet minutes, always with music on shuffle. When I hit the chapter about Vincent and Paul Gauguin’s final fight…the one right before the ear…The Academy Is…’s “Skeptics and True Believers” was in my headphones, immediately followed by Bayside’s “Blame It on Bad Luck.”

That was the moment it clicked. I wasn’t reading history anymore. I was reading a musical.

The angst of emo and pop/punk made perfect sense to me. It wasn’t heightened for the drama…it was accurate to how Van Gogh felt. That realization is more or less the genesis of the entire show.

This song was one of the first written and has always been short. Aside from a single lyric tweak and the addition of Paul at the end, it’s remained untouched since the beginning. It doesn’t want to overstay. It’s just a quick, violent burst of feeling. An emotional detonation. And then it’s gone.

Like Paul.