Anyone who knows me for more than 30 seconds soon learns
that I’m a fully-fledged Beatles devotee (see previous blog post ‘The Beatles
And A Mass of Humanity’), and they had some interesting experiences and
perspectives on this subject. Paul McCartney, if he is to be believed, woke up
with the tune of his most successful song ‘Yesterday’ in his head, taking it
round to friends to play them the melody to see if it was something that was
already out there in the musical ether and later wondering at some point whether
he should really be taking the credit for something he’d apparently dreamed.
John Lennon characteristically saw creativity and fame in psychoanalytical
terms, stating ‘I’m only famous because of my repression. I only made it
because I had a stronger drive to say ‘look Mummy, Daddy, now will you love
me?’’, the implication being that the more desperate the need for deprived
love, the harder the drive is to turn the expression of it into a potential career
and gain the love and respect of millions of people. George Harrison dryly and
concisely commented that ‘songwriting is like going to confession’. And Ringo?
I believe he’s an underrated and highly creative drummer but he took a full 4
years just to write ‘Don’t Pass Me By’ so I have to discount him on this
particular subject!!
John Lennon’s comments hint at the well-known idea of the
‘tortured artist’, whose soul cannot rest until he’s purged himself of the
overwhelming feelings that inhabit and haunt his being and are making him/her
unhappy. This is far too big a subject to go into in a brief blog post, but it
is probably true in some cases though like many things in our society, reduced
over time to a well-worn cliché. What I can say with conviction is that a great
deal of the songwriters and general writers I’ve ever known seem to be bonded
by a certain eccentricity and the implicit shared experience of being
considered outcasts in the glorious ‘straight society’ into which most of us
are born. Don’t kid yourself or buy into the propaganda that society is
‘liberal’. The atmosphere in most schools (and perhaps homes) is archly
conservative, without much deviation from accepted norms needed for behaviour
to be deemed unacceptable and for the perpetrator to be an outcast. The
faux-outrage of news anchors and journalists to what are considered vague
controversies in the real world encourages and shapes this conservatism.
So what of performance? Well, it’s a rush of adrenalin hard
to match, and the first experience of putting yourself up on that stage to
express yourself in front of others is surely never to be forgotten. I used to
suffer from terrible nerves when playing in my first band, and I was only
playing bass rather than being the one that the audience focused on. That magic
moment when you hit the first note of the first song and the nerves clear was
always the one worth all the nervous energy expended beforehand. I’ve
previously written in full about the recollections of a certain Welsh drummer
when he was struck by nerves at his band’s first big concert and the phenomenon
of nerves themselves (see ‘The Way of The Nervous Official’), but in short
there is a tremendous vulnerability involved, perhaps even more in acoustic
performance, which is very often solo and which has an intimacy and purity hard
to match in any other situation, as well as a physical closeness to the
audience. Physical tiredness often accompanies nerves, as the body struggles to
deal with the energy required to fend off the excess adrenalin. Personally, my
nerves disappeared as a musical
performer after I had the far more terrifying ordeal of acting in a full-length
Shakespeare play in the glamorous environs of a hall in Baron’s Court, West
London with a captive audience of around 80 (I think the jury’s out on whether
it’s scarier to perform in front of a small or large audience). The play was ‘Love’s Labour’s Lost’, one of
The Bard’s earliest and dullest, and I stood in the wings, physically shaking
like a leaf, trying to remember my cues and trying to remember to put some
emotion into it beyond just remembering my lines and getting through it. Our
director had helpfully told us that ‘it’s better if you learn the lines well
but not too well, as the risk element will improve your performance’ (while
simultaneously shredding your nervous system, thanks for that!!). The huge
upside of this experience was that performing songs became incredibly easy in
comparison and is something that a seasoned performer generally finds more
comfortable than other pursuits (stand-up comedy being another example of a
remarkably difficult and nerve-racking art form). In performance, you give of
yourself and you hope that the audience appreciates your efforts even if they
don’t quite understand them.
Performing original songs usually not known well by the
audience and performing songs of familiarity are 2 very distinct things, and
not considering myself a serious songwriter, I like to merge the 2, usually
ending with something upbeat and familiar as a kind of reward to the audience
for listening through the unfamiliar (I apply this to myself, not as a general
rule, and I know many songwriters whose material is very easy on the ear on
first listening and beyond). Where communal experience comes into it is the
sheer joy of singing and playing together, and we have to thank the songwriters
who created these instantly memorable songs for inadvertently creating these
wonderful moments. I had an experience of this last week at a rockabilly jam
session in Madrid. Having 8 or 9 players with guitars, banjos, mandolins and
harmonica and multiple voices was uplifting for everyone, and after the regular
session was over, some of us continued for a couple more hours, finding common
ground and songs between us and having the whole of the small bar involved and
singing along. To reference the Beatles one more time (only one more, I
promise!), it reminded me a little of the famous performance of ‘Hey Jude’ on
the David Frost show in 1968 (see link below) where people of various colours
and creeds all joined the band for the 4-minute ‘na, na, na, na-na-na-na’
extended finale, all packed into a tight space just as we were last week.
Finally, I’ve long been interested in mental health and
wellbeing, having studied Psychology at college, read a number of books on the
subject and had my own occasional brushes with the dark side. Depression has
become a very overused word and it has been glamourised in many ways, making it
seem cool to be unhappy and making the person seem deep and spiritual because
they don’t smile a lot. I don’t dismiss this entirely, and I don’t mean to make
light of people’s problems and the difficulties of simply living life itself
(Bob Dylan’s autobiography ‘Chronicles’ quotes one of his relatives telling him
‘try not to judge too harshly, life is a struggle for everyone’), but I have an
uncle who’s been clinically depressed for over 30 years and needs a cocktail of
drugs to lead the simplest of lives so I think some perspective is required.
The distinction that needs to be made is between having an actual illness and
simply having sustained bouts of negative moods for whatever reason. For the
latter, there are solutions that don’t require therapy or medication, such as
meditation (and even just simple deep breathing), exercise (including
remarkably effective holistic pursuits like yoga), dietary changes (reduction or
elimination of processed sugar and alcohol being a good start), minimal
exposure to television, media and general fear propaganda (including
advertising, which is all about making you feel bad about yourself to sell you
products, either blatantly or subtly) and even just a decision to make yourself
feel better. The television and media issue is relevant here too because
allowing yourself to be exposed to them means letting someone else shape your
reality and effectively make your decisions for you, taking away self-empowerment.
I say to people who are unhappy- do you stretch your body?
do you eat nutritious food?, do you have moments of peace and reflection?, do
you watch a lot of television?, do you exercise?, do you wish to be positive or
do you indulge yourself, perhaps feeling yourself a ‘sensitive artist’ and so
entitled to feel bad? Perhaps most importantly, do you allow yourself to feel
tremendous pressure to be happy in social situations even when you’re not and
would much rather tell someone about it? I’m not judging because until
relatively recently I would have answered no to most of those and yes to the
last one, but it is a remarkably liberating feeling to suddenly decide not to
fear others and what they might think and to realise how much unnecessary
stress is self-imposed (Bob Dylan- ‘you lose yourself, you reappear, you
suddenly find you’ve got nothing to fear’). I recently read an interesting
theory from author Robert Greene that humans had so much to fear for such a
long time in the days of hunting and gathering, with the constant threat of starving
or being killed by other humans or wild animals, that when we emerged and found
the (relatively) comfortable existence we have now, we couldn’t turn off the
fear mechanism so instead started created our own ones instead!
Tying this back to performance and communal experiences, the
conclusion I’ve reached in terms of the way to achieve happiness and wellbeing
is that while all of the above strategies for improving mood are effective, the
most important thing is people, positive relationships and shared experiences.
‘Connection’ is another word that has been clichéd, particularly in the self-help
industry, which seems to have reduced wisdom and the possibility of
self-improvement to glossy, easy-to-read oversimplifications, but it is real. My
biography can be summed up very simply. I was a happy, outgoing and confident
kid who, through circumstances and bad decisions, retreated into his shell and
became antisocial and distrustful for an enormous amount of time before
gradually digging himself out of it to try to give people and life more of a
chance. In my humble opinion, trying to connect to other people or to creative
expression is a source of great joy that should be a constant in everyone’s
lives.
Attached are the links I’ve mentioned plus another on one of the same themes. Feedback, both positive and negative, is always
welcome.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMpdPrm6Ul4&list=PLEnRqGl4LYmzwGzoCCcBKRdz5WXNt-Wa_- John Cleese on creativity (not the speech I mentioned but still very good)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvHsTQUA2SE - The Beatles - 'Hey Jude' live on David Frost show (joyous!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYQJQL50eTw - David Icke on personal potential
