Friday, September 23, 2005
The Hurricane Within
If you read me regularly or have endured my comments, you know I'm no fan of TV. I prefer to wait a year and rent it if I think it might be good. So far I've only rented HBO series, And the first couple of seasons of 24 which got tedious. And Seinfeld, of course. A little of Friends. So I'm well versed in the goings on at The Sopranos, Sex and the City, The English version of The Office, Larry David's series, Curb Your Enthusiasm and my favorite has been Six Feet Under. I'm watching season three of that now and the recurring theme about creativity and discovering yourself is weighing heavy on me.
All the characters seem to be struggling with discovering who they really are. My favorite is the character Claire who gets advice from her art professor. In essence, he tells her that good art, true art, is unpredictable because it comes in the artist's own language and it comes from deep within. It should resemble nothing else.
I think I'm doing that with my music until somebody tells me I remind them of somebody else. I appreciate the complements, I really do. It's damn near impossible to be successful in this business without subscribing to a formula. Nashville is built on that notion note for note. That's not a criticism of country music. It's a documented fact. Read Billboard. The same is true throughout the genres to the same or lesser extent. Every once in a while a record company acquires the nerve to promote something original. If it's successful, it is copied and the cycle of formula starts anew.
So it becomes meaningless in music to try to claim any real originality. It comes down to whether people like to listen to it. Or not. Still my goal is to speak in my own language in my own way of things that touch me deeply. If it comes out sounding like the Dylans or anybody else I've been compared to, that's fine. I'm sure they wouldn't agree.
I recognize that to sell your music when you are unknown, you have to fall back on comparisons of known artists to explain yourself to people. That's just the way it works. Nothing wrong with that. Irritating as it can become. But for now, I'm fine with that.
The back story of how I came to write the song Jacob's Hurricane has been told here many times. Lately, I've been shying away from singing it at gigs. Somebody told me last time I did it that they loved the song but the words were too scary or something. What do you folks think, in light of what's been going on and what's about to happen again? Should I be singing this song?
posted by Bud @ 5:27 AM
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