Today I had some free time, so I thought I’d write about my fairly weird relationship to music. If you’re reading this, I figure you’re probably either a friend of mine or one of my few (but highly cherished) fans. Or maybe you’re my future murderer, obsessively tracking my virtual trail. Facebook photos of me and hand-written theories explaining how I am the Antichrist strung up all across the walls of your dimly lit apartment. In any case, I figure you might find this discussion at least mildly interesting.
I am a singer-songwriter. I used to cringe at that word and the laid-back, takin’ it easy, rustic vibes it stirred up in me, but I guess it’s accurate. I sing songs and those songs were written by me. You win, English language.
It should be noted, though, that my stuff isn’t particularly easy-goin’, or laid back a lot of the time. Not the kind of stuff you listen to in order to “get a nice buzz on” when you smoke pot at the local folk festival. I don’t particularly dislike that kind of music as a whole, some of it I even quite enjoy. So this isn’t a judgmental thing. I just am trying to express that that sort of connotation that comes up with the term “singer-songwriter”, I don’t think entirely captures what I do.
My music’s sort of strange. I have a weird voice. I’m not the best guitarist in the world. And yet, I find myself singing and playing guitar. Quite often, actually. And (arguably) professionally. Someone recently asked me why I do that. Why I go through the efforts involved in performing for others if I don’t seem to care too much about sounding “good” in the conventional sense of that word in respect to pop music. They indicated that they enjoy very much what I do, but wanted to hear my thoughts on the matter. So I wasn’t offended. Even if they hadn’t told me they liked what I do, I still wouldn’t be too offended. What I do is not everyone’s cup of tea, and a thick skin is fairly necessary in this kind of field, no matter what sort of art you manifest.
But, in response to that question – why do I go through so much effort to perform my songs for others if I don’t seem all that interested in what the audience thinks – the answer is basically: I don’t know. I think the word “calling” is fairly appropriate in describing my relationship to my art. I don’t exactly will this stuff into existence, the way one might think. Will has a role I suppose, but it’s not the main thing. Willingness, actually, is the main ingredient. Totally different thing.
In a lot of ways, I quite genuinely wish that I didn’t do this stuff. I can be a pretty timid and self-conscious person, and there’s a lot of putting oneself out there that’s necessary in being a performing songwriter.
Beyond the obvious part of performing live to an audience of some kind, I also have to bring my songs (which are these extremely fragile and vulnerable little babies) to my band mates in the first place. I think they’re some of the finest musicians (with the most refined tastes) that I know. Beyond that, I am pretty intimate with them. I care about them and I know they’ll be playing these songs for a while, so they are the people I most thoroughly want to have enjoy the songs. That’s always a challenge for me.
Then I have to try and lead these guys in some way that has the appropriate balance of clear direction and a willingness to adapt to new ideas and insights. I have to contact booking agents, correspond with visual artists for posters and other artwork. I have to talk to door guys, club owners, other musicians. When I record, I work with different kinds of audio engineers. I pitch my stuff to different bloggers and voices in the media.
Obviously, these are all people, with all their own individual hopes and fears and senses of humor and families. And so when I see it that way, and I adapt to each person in their individual humanity, everything runs pretty smoothly. But if the focus changes, which can very easily happen due to my timid nature, I can quickly become overwhelmed by the variety of people and situations that arise in this world I’m involved in. I start seeing everything as an obstacle of some kind, and fearing I’m not equipped to face them all.
So, what would be much more comfortable for me would be to just retreat into a kind of quietism. Give up this indie singer-songwriter persona I’ve been hiding behind for a long while, and go join a monastery somewhere. I’ve grown to rather enjoy meditating, so this would be something like going to a kind of heaven for me.
The problem I see with this scenario is two-fold. For one thing, it’s a total fantasy. I know from personal experience that monasteries aren’t actually like that. At least the kinds of monasteries I’d go to, anyway. They are places of intense self-examination and work. All the stuff that I want to avoid in the “worldly life” would come up with even more immediacy. I would have absolutely no way to distract myself from them, either. These obstacles I face are not in the world. They are inside of me. I unwittingly carry them around until I actually examine them and put them to rest. I might one day want to enter some kind of long-term monastic residency, but the drive would have to be to become intimate with these parts of myself, not to run away from them.
Beyond that, I shouldn’t give up performing because I have a gift. I don’t consider that too arrogant of a thing to say, because I don’t really take much credit for it. I’ve always had a way with language and I’ve always had this incessant drive towards self-expression. That drive wasn’t something I chose, the way a person chooses which restaurant to go to. That drive is more like the hunger which propels someone into choosing a restaurant in the first place. Songwriting is my main vehicle of expression. The one that I have the greatest degree of mastery over, and it is a waste of this mastery to not actualize its potential.
This actualization of potential really has nothing to do with becoming rich or becoming famous or anything like that. It obviously wouldn’t hurt to get a bit of money for my work. And I’m trying to figure out how to do that more and more. I make some money, but not enough at this point to fully support myself, much less to eventually support a family I might want to have some day. So more money would be good, and I always appreciate when someone is willing to pay me for the art I make. But getting rich isn’t the main drive in my art.
And fame.. Eh. I had to kill that monstrous hope inside me. I had to come to terms with the fact that it wasn’t equipped to do what I had hoped it was equipped to do. A lot of people in our culture (including myself for most of my life) seem to think that fame has some kind of value in-and-of-itself. Like “being famous” will somehow neutralize all the mortal parts of yourself. Like if you’re famous, then you’ve somehow won life. This idea is perpetuated all over the place. Everyone buys into its allure. The people who chase after it and get it are worshiped by all the ones who chase after it and don’t get it. But the fame itself is not delivering anything special. All that’s really taking place is a a deluded feedback system. A very far-reaching one, since it is so gratifying to that part of ourselves that wants to shed itself of its mortality. The promise of fame is the promise of god-hood. It’s the promise of transcendence. A false promise, of course, but a promise nonetheless.
This is all happening in our culture, and we rarely step back and actually notice its dynamic quality at work. It’s so deeply embedded in my understanding of the world, in fact, that I still find myself occasionally entangled in its grasp. And while I’m not trying to paint myself as some fully-enlightened sage, I think I’ve gone through more efforts to actively work on seeing through fame’s illusion than your average “Real World” cast member. This indicates to me that the power of fame, the capacity it has to absorb all our projections and human longings, is a very insidious and deeply seeded one.
Rather than getting rich and famous, though, the actualization of potential I’m speaking about is simply uncovering parts of myself I find to be burdensome and learning to make use of them. Realizing what these obstacles actually are. The part of myself that is afraid of being rejected by my band mates is the part of myself that’s asking me to show them my new songs. They are two sides of the same coin. They depend on each other. They inform each other. I can’t achieve anything without risking failure. This is the way things are. This is the way life itself is, isn’t it? When you say something is alive, aren’t you also saying it’s capable of dying? Life has a shadow. So does success.
One doesn’t need to be an artist in order to actualize his or her potential. That’s just how the process of actualization is currently manifesting itself in my life, with my causes and conditions at play. But anyone can become as big as they really are. There’s no one-size-fits-all prescription for this stuff. No one can find out what you need to do in your life except for you. Even more importantly, no one can actually do those things except for you.
If you find a way around this insight, please let me know. Maybe there is some app out there which will do it for you. A magical self-actualization app. As I’ve said, I’d very much enjoy not having to go perform in front of people. I just know it’s the only way to become as big as I actually am. This largeness has nothing to do with my “fan base” or my net worth, either. It’s not so easily quantifiable. Until science finds a way to gauge the heart, I’m afraid there’s no formal and precise means of measurement that I or anyone else could appeal to.
I just know that sometimes I feel my heart swelling up with love and respect and gratitude. That’s enough.
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I’m a better songwriter than a blogger, for sure. You can follow my music, updates, and find all the music videos on my facebook, here:
https://www.facebook.com/MatthewSquiresMusic
And here’s a link to my most recent album, which you can stream for free or download for any price you’d like, inluding free (I’ve got little blurbs from some of the press it’s been getting included as well!):
https://matthewsquires.bandcamp.com/album/you-are-everything-or-the-art-of-being-nothing-in-particular
