Watching One Trick Pony at night circa 2006, hanging on every frame, acquiescing at the message of artistic purity and to thyself being true. All this, but to wake up early the next morning and carefully dress and prepare for work. How very rock 'n roll, I remember thinking.
My emotional reaction to popular song is so varied that I think any concise summary of what the music is "about" can automatically be dismissed. But we can certainly identify some common threads and themes. Here's one: Defiance, be it artistic, political, spiritual, emotional. Rallying against injustice, or ignorance, taking a stand against the march of time, or man. So much of the mythology is built around specific instances of this: acts to free the body, substances to free the mind.
What does it mean, then, that I find myself at once so taken with the music, and yet live a life that is the complete opposite of what it prescribes?
The obvious response -- that it offers me something I secretly aspire to -- is, I can confidently say, plainly wrong. I'm rather comfortable with the principles I've chosen. In fact, sometimes, I suspect my feelings for those who've sold their life to the music is something close to pity. Wastrels, I secretly think, chasing something ephemeral. In fact, life on the straight and narrow is not as bad as they might imagine. Yes, it's not just a purpose, but imagination they lack.
This probably also explains why I respond to a certain strain of country music -- Puritan values, and the damnation that comes from straying away from them. Life spent in fear of a moral code, where Defiance is not against the mere laws of man, but against God, and also, an Idea. Freedom of the spirit, rather than the body or mind. A much better deal, because as those ever-wise wordsmiths reminded us, freedom sometimes isn't all that different from having nothing left to lose.
My emotional reaction to popular song is so varied that I think any concise summary of what the music is "about" can automatically be dismissed. But we can certainly identify some common threads and themes. Here's one: Defiance, be it artistic, political, spiritual, emotional. Rallying against injustice, or ignorance, taking a stand against the march of time, or man. So much of the mythology is built around specific instances of this: acts to free the body, substances to free the mind.
What does it mean, then, that I find myself at once so taken with the music, and yet live a life that is the complete opposite of what it prescribes?
The obvious response -- that it offers me something I secretly aspire to -- is, I can confidently say, plainly wrong. I'm rather comfortable with the principles I've chosen. In fact, sometimes, I suspect my feelings for those who've sold their life to the music is something close to pity. Wastrels, I secretly think, chasing something ephemeral. In fact, life on the straight and narrow is not as bad as they might imagine. Yes, it's not just a purpose, but imagination they lack.
This probably also explains why I respond to a certain strain of country music -- Puritan values, and the damnation that comes from straying away from them. Life spent in fear of a moral code, where Defiance is not against the mere laws of man, but against God, and also, an Idea. Freedom of the spirit, rather than the body or mind. A much better deal, because as those ever-wise wordsmiths reminded us, freedom sometimes isn't all that different from having nothing left to lose.
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