crowded bays.

i started playing music to connect with people.  nowadays there just ain’t anyone left to connect with.

david byrne said lyrics are overrated.  he’s right.  listen to your favorite rap song and tell me the lyrics or check out your favorite gaga song and read the lyrics.  it’s all bullshit.  nobody gives a shit about what artists are saying anymore.  they just want to drink and dance their way through songs.  

heaven forbid an artist like erykah badu comes out with an artistic video that actually makes people think.  how horrible thinking is.

as long as everyone stays on their pharmaceuticals and isn’t offered a striking point of view, then the system will stay in place.  we can’t have people thinking outside the box anymore.

songs are like candy.  they lurk around every single corner.  there is no hunting, searching, or special ordering any albums anymore.  the candy dispensers are your online stores and your bittorrent sites.  they have made music so easily accessible that music has become as dispensable as a candy wrapper.  you hold it in your hands for the brief fleeting moment of unwrapping this carefully concocted gift, and then you throw it out as quickly as you purchased it.  why?  because it’s so easy to access.  songs aren’t treasures anymore, they’re sugary dispensable treats.  no wonder there isn’t anyone willing to spend the time writing anything worthwhile.  songs are as meaningful as they are now treated.

the new music videos are the brief 30 seconds that a hit tv show uses a song for a dramatic ending.  this trains the viewer that it’s ok to talk over music.  we all do it.  music is becoming background noise.  i remember when shawn colvin said, “i’ll never forget when I heard james taylor’s ‘fire and rain’.  i ran to the record store and bought the single and took it to my friend’s house and told her ‘you have to hear this; it’ll change you life.’”  i cannot tell you the last time i heard a friend say that to me.  it wasn’t in this last decade.

music used to be all me and my friends had.  it’s what we lived for.  we would stay in record stores for hours and search for the perfect treasure.  we would drive through our city in circles twenty times a night so we could sit next to each other silently and take in songs.  lyrics and music.  it was an experience.

what is going on these days?

what is the remedy?  i will tell you, but i don’t think it will matter.  dedicate an hour a day to music.  full uninterrupted music.  do not talk on the phone.  turn it off.  do not knit or watch baseball or make dinner.  just listen.  sing.  think about the lyrics… if they have anything to do with losing a phone in a club, find another song with more substance.  think about memories.  associate those lyrics with those memories.  what song makes you think about your first love?  what song reminds you of going to san francisco with your best friends?  what song makes you think of loneliness?  let it all in… and don’t let anything stop you from allowing the music to make you FEEL.  PUT AWAY YOUR FUCKING GADGETS AND FEEL SOMETHING AGAIN!  be selfish.  feel for yourself.  let the songs in.  let them affect you like you allow jesus to.  go to the church of music and offer up your soul.

this is the only way music will be saved.  by you.