July 2024 - Nashville, TN
Listeners are so accustomed to hearing music with no meaning that they no longer look for meaning in music. I often hear pseudo-artists say things like, “It’s up to the listener to interpret my music.” It’s not true. Intention initiates every action whether the intention is realized or unrealized by the initiator or the interpreter. I’ve been writing, singing, screaming, chanting and pointing at something specific throughout my 20-year career in music. It’s something which doesn’t fit into words any better than the cosmos fits into the human brain. It can’t be grasped. It can’t be explained. It can’t be preached. It can only be experienced. It can only be realized. The musical artist may only inspire the listener to become receptive to it. It is true that your interpretations and your perspectives are entirely up to you. You may interpret the Mona Lisa as a grapefruit or the great pyramid as a clown, but you are willfully ignoring the intention of the artist and the transmission of the art. In the 21st Century, it has become entirely “normal” to live an entire lifetime in a state of willful ignorance, but choosing to to trust your own interpretations and perspectives while living in a state of willful ignorance will have dire consequences and detrimental repercussions.
Self-indulgent ego-jabber should never be equated with art. Art is not redundant. Art is not egoic. Art doesn’t mimic or mime. Choreographed dancers lip-synching songs they didn’t write may have highjacked the word “Artist,” but it’s no more art than picking one’s nose or changing a spare tire. One may or may not acquire the skillset to perfect the craft of changing a tire or nose-picking, but it’s not art. This is not to disparage the hard work, the skill and the dedication required to perfect the craft of entertainment, especially entertainment with mass appeal. I’ve worked a thousand shows wherein I’ve witnessed firsthand the meticulousness of entertainers. It’s not easy. Still, entertainment is not art.
Artists are often accused of making art for themselves, as though art were a self-help book or a shrink. Some artists have fallen into that delusion too, believing they make art for themselves. In a broad sense that the whole universe is the “Self,” it’s true that every action within itself is for itself. But the notion of a shipwrecked man alone on an island composing elaborate symphonies for his own peace of mind is silly. Creation is to be shared, otherwise it’s useless. A “sharing” metaphor most people intuitively understand is sex vs. masturbation. The physiological reaction to stimulation is the same. Pleasure is achieved in both acts. The effect is the same. So why does a human being spend so much of its life seeking a mate or mates? The creative and the receptive exist in all things. One half of your lungs are in the trees. Neither a plant nor an insect could survive without the other, and the plant is what literally becomes the body which dies and feeds the insect and the plant. The entire earth is a system of creation and reception. Nothing creates for its small self. Creation is to be shared. If no one receives my memo (which is my life), the creative spirit which lives in me, lives in vain.
Preferences must be taken off the pedestal. Humans must stop identifying with their meager preferences. Apples and oranges both bring joy and nutritional value. Dogs and cats and The Beatles and The Rolling Stones are nonexclusively lovely and lovable. 21st Century society attempts to cater to each individual’s very particular preferences, successfully stunting the evolution of nearly everyone living within it. The only way to break out of this brainwashing mechanism is to stop identifying with one part of a binary whole. The food you eat, the medication you take, the movies you watch, the news you receive, the podcasts and videos and music which are recommended to you —the whole system which currently governs your life - there IS an intention initiating your every action, and that intention is to keep you in a state of willful ignorance, to keep you clicking, to keep you buying, to keep you thinking that you’re choosing to live this life by your own free will. The reality is you’re becoming trapped in a world of likes and dislikes, favorites and least favorites, thumbs up and thumbs down, shares, follows and subscribes. Try consciously choosing what you do, what you consume, who you engage with, what you see and what you hear. Allowing algorithms to dictate what you hear, see, feel and consume is already wreaking havoc upon humanity. It’s only just begun. It’s primed to get much worse in the coming years.
You must seek evolution. You must seek to know what you do not understand, to interact with and converse with those with whom you disagree, to discover worlds which you do not currently believe exist, to experience art and music and words which reveal and sing and speak beyond that which is recommended to you by apps. Algorithmic recommendations on YouTube, Apple Music and Spotify, particularly, are paid for by Mammon, the arch nemesis of art and truth alike. You must step outside the box before ever realizing you lived in a box. You must interact with that familiar place which has always been on the tip of your nose but which you’ve willfully ignored since childhood. Anything which alludes to a world of safety, security and comfort is a lie. You must hear, see and feel things which make you uncomfortable, insecure and unsafe in order to evolve. Existence is not safe nor secure nor comfortable. It is absolutely miraculous though, and the experience itself will lead you to things you cannot imagine. Even the greatest imagination cannot reveal the true scope of this existence.
You must loosen the stranglehold of identity. Inclusivity is not just a stupid platitude. Becoming inclusive is not about being nice to people you believe are different from you. It’s about you realizing you’re not who you believe yourself to be. You must become inclusive in your own growth. Whatever societal identity you’ve gathered, it’s completely irrelevant existentially. You are not your state, your country nor your religion. You are not your race, your gender nor your sexuality. You are not your abilities nor disabilities. You are not your advantages nor disadvantages. You are not your likes and dislikes. You are not your astrological sign nor your medical diagnosis. You are not your favorite genre of music nor your favorite TV show. You are not what algorithms are programmed to trigger in you. What you truly are does not fit into words.
No one “likes” being preached at, which is why I usually choose to sing instead of preach. There will come a time when people listen, and maybe my writings will bring clarity to my music. Wisdom doesn’t preach, only sings.