I’m crying.

This weekend the buzz was about "Inception".  Movies are great, but they can’t touch you like a song.  Like "Message To My Girl".  By Split Enz.

You haven’t heard it.  I had it on a cassette.  I remember playing it in my old car with my old wife.  It reminds me of a time gone by.  But unlike the greatest music, it loses nothing over time, it’s still alive today.

My favorite Napster downloads are "Liar", by Argent, a cover of "Like A Rolling Stone" performed by Michael Hedges and "Message To My Girl" by Split Enz with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.  I wasn’t going to write about "Message To My Girl", but I found it tacked on in a video to the song I did want to write about, "Amsterdam".  The live version of the latter is not as good as the studio take.  The recording is not perfect.  Unlike the impression I got from the title, the two songs don’t run together, there’s a break, they’re separate.  And then Neil Finn sits down at the keyboard and renders the essence of music.

Music is not about perfection.  Because life isn’t either.  That’s the illusion being proffered.  That if you just get enough plastic surgery, your life will work.  But ask Heidi Montag.  And Kim Kardashian may be smiling in public, but she’s got a string of failed relationships behind her.  She’s crying on the inside, but smiling for the camera.

We’re all crying on the inside.  But we can no longer show it.  But what do we do with these emotions?  Music used to speak to our inner life, before it became about hits and videos and money.  Sure, it was always about money, but before you could make enough to buy a professional sports team, the main driver for music creation was feeling.  The goal was to get what was inside down on wax.  Frequently, it wasn’t even about the recording, but the evanescent live recording.

Which is now captured.

At first Neil Finn’s vocal is so perfect, you can’t believe it, you’re stunned, it’s as good as the recording.  Then he stretches and reveals his frailties.  The same way you adore someone from afar and get to know them and discover their imperfections.  Yes, this rendition of "Message To My Girl" is humanity on parade.

And "Message To My Girl" is so good, I’m always interested in what Mr. Finn does.  On the last Crowded House album there’s a song that still shocks me when I hear it on my iPod (twice at random in the last week!)  That track is "Silent House".

"Amsterdam" is not as good as either.  But there’s a killer change that touches your heart and makes you want to see the band live, to get ever closer.

Either you’re a flash in the pan, playing to everybody on Top Forty radio, or you’re playing to your fans.  Don’t worry about anybody beyond the ropes, maybe they’ll hear the sound and come ’round, but odds are they won’t.  Your only hope is your core supports you and testifies to its friends, dragging them to the gig (which must be priced low so they can go!), playing them your music.

We’ve been taught otherwise.  Everything in life is quantified, as if you carved a notch in the headboard every time you had sex.  But that’s not true.  Life is really a bunch of unconnected moments that we try to make sense of.  And we make sense of them by going to the gig, to be touched by life.

Now I wake up happy
Warm in a lover’s embrace

That’s what we all want.  To stop sleeping alone.  To be in bed with someone we trust, who loves us.

No one else can touch us
While we’re in this place

That’s the essence of not only relationships, but family.  We bond together to protect ourselves from outside influences, trying to bring us down.

So I sing it to the world
Simple message to my girl

Can you take a risk?  Can you reach out and try to connect?  You’d be surprised how few can, even though they’re dying to do so inside.  And so many of those who cannot substitute music.  The nerds, that’s what they’re getting from their fandom.  It’s a substitute for sex.  Not quite as good, still pretty great.

No more empty self-possession
Vision swept under the mat
It’s no New Year’s resolution
It’s more than that

This is not what you expected, probably not what you want, not even what I had planned.  But if one is willing to follow the music, if one is willing to be open and free, one can live a life of transcendence.

You can listen to the take of "Amsterdam" if you want, but start around 3:55 to hear "Message To My Girl": CROWDED HOUSE – Amsterdam & Message To My Girl (Split Enz) – House of Blues – Boston – 17 July 2010