So you're a musician.
Well Me too. I have a guitar, a piano, a keyboard, a harmonica, a drum to beat on, annnnnd some spoons. My skill level at each of them? Not great. But I could get better, I swear. Then I could maybe even one day be famous. Quasi-famous? Non-famous? Infamous.
I stopped writing songs when I realized I couldn't sing. This was an unfortunate realization since the songs I wrote were actually pretty good!
The idea of someone possibly falling asleep at night to the melody that you created is pretty special. The thrill of having someone clinging onto every last lyric of a song that you wrote is especially exciting! Especially when you can secretly fool them all with some deep, dark & mysterious metaphor in your song that only truly makes any sense to the people you are most intimate with in your life. Or better yet: nobody else in the world but yourself.
The potential for metaphors and symbols and often not making a whole lot of sense makes the art of song-writing a very romantic endeavor. It doesn't matter if you are writing a song about pain, love, life, or death. Heck, even the punkest of punk bands can still write a song that tears at the heartstrings because of the degree of passion put into, say, bringing down the government! But outside of punk rock, a guy can still write a heartmelting song that can truly make the person he devotes it to become short of breath, perhaps a little bit dizzy, and maybe weak in the knees.
The opportunity to create intense admiration (ranging from "just a fan" to "I know all your songs" to "sexually stimulated" to "cyber-stalker" to "roadie/groupie" to "follow me to my van after the gig") from members of your fanbase is also intriguing. With only 3 1/2 minute songs, a musician can gain this kind of power over their audience. Songs that beckon each and every one of its listeners to fall head over heals in love with its creator. Songs that are so incredibly beautiful, sensitive, and tragic that the degree of vulnerability on display with the artist's most inner soul will make even the most straight-faced cold-hearted cynical person weep.
These are the songs that I would sing for you. These songs I would dedicate to you.
Dedication. This is what having success in most things comes to in the end. A little luck doesn't hurt either. Dedication: to tour, to write, to perform, to endure, to put out easily accessible & affordable non-tacky music & merch, and to not sell out. Any musician seeking fortune or fame has to put in some pretty serious dedication - year after year after STD after year.
Since I no longer write songs, and it is unlikely to ever become a viable vocation for me, I often think about the other ways that I might be able to get her attention/fill up my days. In life, don't a lot of people at least try to develop themself into a more dimensional, complex individual? Enroll in a Mediterranean cooking class. Take Tai Chi. Learn another language. It would be sooooo much easier to just be a musician! I think it must be like living in a dreamworld to be a successful musician - especially a lead singer in a band - where alll of those endless, fantastic things happen to you, whether you are drunk or high or not. The mundane routine of playing the same songs while earning little money at dirty little clubs with the same sleezy cocktail waitresses time and time again... WOULD BE GREAT!!! For a while. I can understand how some bands cannot overcome the ennuyeux of similar setlists and drunken fans/cyber-stalkers/roadies borderline harassing them (or begging to get harassed by them). But in the end, I think that the band learns to evolve and put out incredibly stimulating material less frequently (TOOL, Propagandhi, Radiohead), or else fizzles out completely. For this reason, I guess I just have to be happy that I do not write songs. If I can simply spend some time with people I like that also don't mind wasting their nights away watching these musicians give themselves up for us, then that's fine too.
SNFU can be credited to the title of this blog:
chapter 110.
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