PART THREE: In which our boy FINALLY SEES THE LIGHT!!
So…
Finally, the crucial, decade-long moment arrived.
The long moment where it felt like the only true life he had was physically apart from every other living thing.
(Even as he suspected that, somewhere deep inside he remained connected at a much more important and ultimately defining level.
But how would he ever get back there?).
In his 20-something bedroom – in the gut of a pulsing city whose heart-rate matched his own, he’d rend and pull these songs out from he never knew where – certainly informed by a single young experience of life, but felt like things coming through from much farther afield than a single young experience of life – he’d forge these things with his hammer of an axe.
A fine-tipped, stringed paintbrush of an axe.
These songs gave him his spirit back.
They gave him his voice, his person, and his sense of being in a world that, at every turn seemed to value shit over gold.
And they gave him arguably the most important piece of his artistic life; the first real step in the only religion he had himself ever found.
He called it The Long Lost Story.
Now, we cut to the present.
Our boy is still there, just in a man’s body. But the compass and the music remain.
Rehearsals, bandmates, producers, studios, tours, festivals, bars, shitty gigs..
Magical gigs, rental cars, hotels, motels, beer, sound guys, video shoots..
Meetings, publicists, agents, articles, campaigns, releases, stories. Guitars.
All of these attendant wonderful, colorful, difficult and debilitating, glamourless, annoying, inspiring, and surprising, quintessentially human things.
And countless more behind him and (knock on wood) ahead.
And still, as far as he’s concerned..
all of it is there to support only one thing: those songs.
This is still what he loves about music. This is what he does it for. And it still comes down to one-to-one.
The 15-year-old is still there, under the covers, way past any reasonable 15-year old bedtime, jamming along insanely to Aerosmith’s Permanent Vacation, most likely shaking the bed and certainly drenching the sheets from the sweat of listening so hard. Him, and the song.
A worthy song is priceless; it’s value cannot in any quantifiable way be measured.
The truest songs (which equate to the best songs), are pieces of souls, entirely.
As intimate, unguarded, and brutally honest as something your husband or wife might reveal to you a handful of times in life.
If you love music, you know this. In fact, there’s probably a good chance this is why you love music.
A lot of musicians are addicted to the high of the performance, or just love being on the road, constantly moving from place to place.
(And when you’re on the road it is indeed thrilling and you do feel alive and everyone should try it at least once in their life.)
BUT, the reason I am here (I’m supposing you figured out that the kid in the story is me) – my purpose, and I know this – is to write songs and create albums of music, that can be felt by human beings.
Nothing at all short of true love.
And make no mistake about it – the chief human being I am trying to move in this endeavor is myself.
And when I say move, I mean destroy, thrill, inspire to tears.
This is the level I’ve measured every single song I’ve ever taken to the state of finished, album-worthy recording up against. This is the test.
Behind all the pretense (think of what the word means in its literal sense – pretend) of “coolness”, nonchalance, apparent uncaring of any of the great artists in modern music history – Elvis, Miles, Zeppelin, The Stones, Bowie, and on and on right through the artists of today – there is/was an absolute and unwavering, relentless dedication to the thing that would eventually end up on tape. Without fail.
And this is what we end up hearing. Nothing at all short of true love. This is, in my humble opinion, why certain records stick around.
It is a travesty that in our culture, these pieces of love are not institutionally valued.
It should be a crime, it should be unthinkable.
Imagine a world without art. I mean real art, which is any art that connects to the fundamentals of our humanity.
We would choke and die, or we would kill each other from pent-up rage at an even more alarming rate than we already do (if that can be imagined).
Because nothing would be there to diffuse our internal battles by reflecting them back to us, thereby acknowledging them in us, thereby letting us feel that another feels them (us), thereby allowing us to let them evaporate, or at least subside for the present moment enough so that we can live through it.
If you’ve ever wondered what art “does,” this is what it does. This is its function.
I think, at the deepest levels, I must only write because I’m constantly searching for real, honest connection.
And I would guess that the level of meaning in my songs must be directly proportional to the amount of desire I have to connect.
This is also precisely what I find most thrilling, and most attractive in others.
My dream is that every person I meet would skip all the bullsh*t and show me the thing that most explodes their heart with joy.
What else, after all, could be the project of life, the task of our existence?
Finding this thing, and then pursuing it through the heart of death. Transcending death. That’s it.
So, for the brave troopers among you that have made it this far, I want to give you something to say thank you for listening to the story. Just a few more little things. And, in a way they’re each right up this very alley.
THE GIFTS FROM ME TO YOU, JUST CLICK HERE
And if you feel like giving something in return, take a second and please tell me below:
What is it for you? What’s the thing? What is your engine? Why are you here?
You will be giving me (and everyone who reads it) a true gift.
Or just say hi, and let me know you can relate.
So until next time, please enjoy, with love,
(Whew)
David
Give us a reason, give us something you can feel – DB