Missy Higgins – Oh Canada – Spotify

This song will bring tears to your eyes, especially if you read along with the lyrics here:

Missy Higgins – Oh Canada – Lyrics

Inspiration… It hits you when you’re not looking. But it’s this spark that lights the fire of the artist, that results in a creation that touches us.

This is Missy Higgins’s reaction to the death of the Syrian refugee Alan Kurdi, you know the small boy carried from the water after the boat that was supposed to deliver his freedom did not. You can read her story here:

Missy Higgins – Alan Kurdi

I lost track of Missy. I loved her 2007 track “Where I Stood,” but then she disappeared from the American radar screen. She went back to college, got writer’s block and did a cover project, and then had a baby and did this. She identified, she’s nursing.

We’re all human underneath. We have compassion, but too many don’t make the effort, for fear of loss. Australia has a bad record when it comes to boat refugees and America is stirred up by immigration. But can we close the doors after we’ve gotten in?

You might think it’s a political question.

But artists come from an emotional viewpoint. They encapsulate pain and wisdom. And when you hear what they have to say…your opinion is changed.

Read the credits of today’s hit music. You’ll be stunned by the plethora of writers. Seems that no one can do it without help. But it’s insurance more than aid. The end goal is not to get it right, but to make it profitable. Too many rough edges are shorn off. And it’s the rough edges that hook us. How did music become the movie business, where everything’s done by committee? Music blew up because it was the unfiltered vision of artists.

Oh, how far we’ve come.

And I’d be lying if I told you what hooked me was the lyrics, that came last, they were hard to make out, until I went to the website I could not understand most of them.

But the sound, the changes, they were majestic, they immediately grabbed me.

Not that “Oh Canada” is the equal of Neil Young’s “Ohio,” another song written in the wake of tragedy. “Oh Canada” is shy of perfect. So that means in today’s world it tends to go unheard, or it hits a wall. And the end result is those who would be moved by it will never hear it.

But at least Missy Higgins was not reliant upon gatekeepers to get her message out. Today the means of production are within the hands of the proletariat, distribution too. You don’t hype in advance, you just release, and then you wait for traction.

In this case I heard about “Oh Canada” from a reader. Being a Missy Higgins fan I checked it out and was immediately hooked.

He was running from the terror with his father
Who once believed nothing could be worse

That’s what they don’t tell you, that risk everybody keeps advising can leave you worse off, can devastate you. Sure, charge up your future on your credit cards, but for everyone who breaks through to success, there’s even more who go bankrupt.

So he’d handed a man two thousand precious dollars

Are you willing to risk everything you’ve got?

When it’s life or death you will.

And he told his boys that Canada was waiting
There was hope upon her golden shores

We all have hope, it’s what keeps us going. Otherwise we get depressed, become drug addicts, take our own lives. We want to believe if we roll the dice we’ll win, that things will work out. But this is not always the case.

There’s a million ways to justify your fear
There’s a million ways to measure out your words
But the body of Alan being laid upon the sand
Tell me how do you live with that?

How do you live with that? Do you turn a cold shoulder? Do you even know what happened? Artists are messengers, who speak truth and impact us.

And art is not about money, not about chart success, but touching souls.

In “Oh Canada” Missy Higgins touched mine.

Money is not the only way to do this.

We admire our rich people, but we love our artists.

You get to choose, which path are you on?

Some cross over, Steven Spielberg is a good example. He’s rich, influential and admirable, he may not always reach the artistic heavens, but his work touches people.

But Spielberg broke through in 1975, in a completely different era. Gerald Ford was still President, inflation had not run away with the economy, Ronald Reagan had not legitimized greed, no one ever talked about billionaires, there weren’t any.

But then Michael Milken made $550 million in one year.

But they got him, indicted him and he even got cancer.

But Milken was just the first. And those who followed knew if they spread the money around, not only gave it to the politicians, but flew them around on their plane, took them on vacation (did you see that Scalia was in Texas on a free trip for someone who’d gotten a favorable ruling from the Supreme Court?), lawmakers bent to their will.

And now we accept this.

We decry the influence of the Kochs.

The right wing excoriates George Soros.

But nobody wants to fight them that hard because one day they too might be rich, and when they achieve this they want the same privileges, the same largesse, the same influence, the same lifestyle.

This is the carrot in front of their eyes, this is the American Dream.

But the lack of a ladder, never mind the influence of money in politics, has the younger generation following Bernie Sanders, who unlike Hillary Clinton never took that Wall Street money. Do you think they paid Hillary because they wanted to hear what she had to say? No, they paid for influence.

Because money trumps everything.

Or does it?

We’ll have to see what inroads Bernie makes.

But one thing we know forever more is that art trumps money every day of the week. Money buys power, but not as much as art.

Assuming you exercise it.

We need a reset. Artists are not in competition with the Kardashians, that family may be famous, but it is not creating art, not in the conventional sense.

But in a society run by money, he or she who has it wins. So artists are comparing themselves with the rich, which they shouldn’t do, because they’re playing a different game, there’s just not enough money in entertainment.

Unless you run the NFL. But does anybody expect Roger Goodell to have a legacy? One people admire? Of course not, he’s the lackey of billionaires.

Is this your goal?

Kurt Cobain wouldn’t take a limo, he said it wasn’t punk.

And Kurt Cobain will last longer in people’s memory than the tech billionaires, hell, Steve Jobs, number one, is already in the rearview mirror.

We’ll all be forgotten one day.

But while you’re here, what is your goal?

There’s nothing wrong with accumulating wealth. If that’s your path, set to it.

But if you consider yourself an artist…

An artist does not do what’s expedient, but what he feels. And we all feel something, none of us are automatons, didn’t you laugh when Rupert Murdoch got engaged to Jerry Hall? He’s just looking for some eye candy, he’s thinking with the little head, not so different from the guy on the street. Encapsulate what people feel in your art and you can own the world. Don’t expect execs to laud this, but the listeners and viewers will, that’s what they’re hungry for.

And artists speak truth to power, they say what’s right, they blow the whistle on foul play and inequity. It’s hard to speak the truth when you’re begging the corporation for a sponsorship. But that’s putting money in front of art.

And youngsters have only grown up in this era, where music is about money. Films too. And let’s be clear, both record labels and movie studios will purvey anything if it sells.

But we’ve been unlocked from our chains. We can now do it ourselves, we can gain control, but we rarely exercise this power.

We are not in a golden age of music. Primarily because the motivation is suspect. Stuff sounds good, but it’s got the nutritional value of a candy bar.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Your greatest asset is your mind. Your influences and education, wrapped up in your thoughts, laid down as your art. They want to sell teenagers, because they’re moldable, they’re satiated with toys, adults are more difficult.

And you can rail against the financial system, but ultimately artists are in control. Not only of their art, but their business. Artists could make sure fans got seats, by going to paperless, by charging what the tickets are truly worth, no one bitches that they can’t get a ticket to the Stones now that they flex-price. But no one else does, because they’re afraid of being labeled the rip-off they are. There’s no honesty, everyone’s fake, everyone’s hiding behind a facade.

And then Bernie Sanders comes along and blows up the building, demonstrating money isn’t everything, and if you appeal to the many as opposed to the few, you can raise just as much cash and owe little in fealty.

That’s the story of the century. How the American Dream was decimated and someone who was not wishy-washy, who always stood for the same principles, stole the hearts and minds of the younger generation.

And the rich people don’t like it.

And the political parties don’t like it.

And the media doesn’t like it.

At first they wouldn’t cover Bernie and they keep saying his proposals are unrealistic.

But Bernie is giving people hope.

Like you used to get when you put on a record or sat in a darkened theatre.

You can be in the hope business, you can be in the connection business, you can even make enough of a living along the way to pay your bills.

You’ve just got to decide this is your path.

How could this show be this bad? Are Martin Scorsese and Mick Jagger really this out of touch? As for Terence Winter, he was involved with the “Sopranos,” I guess that proves that David Chase was the genius there.

I lived through 1973. Although there were no cell phones, there was plenty of boredom, the world was not hoppin’ and poppin’ 24/7. Sure, the Dolls played the Mercer Arts Center, but there was no mania in the streets, certainly not kids running to the venue like they are in the beginning of this production so lame you sit there with your jaw dropped open.

It’s 2016. We’ve come full circle. Truth, justice and the American Way have returned. We want veracity, credibility and honesty. Bernie Sanders, a septuagenarian, has locked up the youth vote by speaking the truth and these counterculture heroes, Marty and Mick, have cooked up this dreck?

First and foremost, it was miscast. We never believe Bobby Cannavale as a record exec. He rings false. And casting is everything. It even supersedes script.

Which in this case is so busy being faithful to what was that it ends up being disloyal to life. Nobody acts this way. Except for maybe Ray Romano, who nails the promo exec.

Yes, there are moments. Even insights. But there’s so much scenery chewing and plot points played as real that never could be that you wince.

As for the wall to wall rock and roll soundtrack… We learned decades ago that this does not make a hit movie, why would someone believe it would succeed on TV?

And, trying to pepper the story with endless references to the era, illustrating how faithful the show is, they talk about lyme disease in Greenwich years before it was a factor. And I’d let that slide if this show had any heart, any truth, instead of trying to get us all excited as an accurate portrayal of what once was.

The reason the “Sopranos” succeeded, was because they threw out the Mafia cookbook. You know, the one with too many “dems” and “dose” wherein tough guys shot each other. Tony was just another suburban denizen…with an edge. The juxtaposition with crime and normalcy was infectious. Tony could take his daughter on a college tour and still strangle an old member of the Mob along the way.

You know what they say in Hollywood, “What have you done for me lately?” And despite being legends, Scorsese and Jagger haven’t done much, the people greenlighting this fiasco were mesmerized by their fame. As for musical TV shows, “Empire” is over the top, that was an artistic choice that succeeded, here they’re playing for accuracy and coming nowhere near it.

As for having youngsters play oldsters… Although the Peter Grant character does a good job of threatening the label people, he’s too short and not paunchy enough and not imposing enough, he acts scary, he just ISN’T scary. And Robert Plant looks like a poof. A weakling who couldn’t get David Bowie in bed.

This is not the way it was.

There was dope and drink, there was crime, but music drove the culture, the acts were gods, and despite ripping the artists off, the execs were enthralled and threatened by them.

I don’t know if that era can come back, too much light shines today. We’re moving towards transparency, however reluctant the oldsters might be. You just can’t do anything illicit anymore. The groupie at the Edgewater Inn would sell mudshark pictures to TMZ.

Then again, we’ve got acts for the modern age. All flash and no substance. Any rough edges have either been rubbed off or exaggerated to generate press. Kanye’s antics resemble the manipulations of Bob Marcucci more than Brian Epstein, it’s about idolmakers. And the press is little better than “16” magazine. Kanye spews a litany of untruths, the writers repeat them, few hear the album and it’s lauded as genius. Huh? As for Taylor Swift reacting to Yeezy at the Grammy Awards, that resembles something out of “Mean Girls” more than modern society. Are you that thin-skinned?

So don’t waste your time.

I’m just mad I had to listen to a year’s worth of hype on such a lame effort.

But that’s today, where they throw it against the wall, promote the hell out of it, and if it doesn’t stick, they just sell something else the very next day.

No wonder every kid believes he’s a star. They’ve got more gravitas than these two-dimensional “brands” with no soul that’ll do anything for the money.

I always thought Scorsese was overrated. He’s bad with arc, but he used to get the feel right.

But here he’s lost his touch.

As for Mick Jagger…

Stick to music!

1. You can’t make it alone. No one is complete, everyone needs help and guidance.

2. Be the best you you can be, that’s your only hope, don’t try to be someone else, it’s your uniqueness that’s your calling card. Your goal is to be yourself and then to glom on to someone who can complement your greatness and beam you into the stratosphere…assuming that’s where you want to go, that’s not the only goal, happiness is key, sometimes a little is enough.

3. Don’t sand off your rough edges, learn how to get along, but don’t aspire to be a namby-pamby wuss without opinions. We gravitate to those with edges, who express what we feel but cannot say.

4. Getting it right is worth a lot. Most people don’t try that hard. Others try to do it just like everybody else. Your goal is to fulfill your vision and get it right for yourself. When you do, others will resonate.

5. Introverts need extroverts, opposites attract, look for someone to fill the holes you cannot. (This is an analogue of #1, but it bears repeating in a society where everybody’s trying to be someone they are not.)

6. Leave the house. Even if you’re not sure you want to go. Online is a facsimile of life. You can only truly be alive when you interact with other people. You never know what will happen, assuming you are playing.

7. Everybody hates failure and loss. The key is to put yourself in uncomfortable situations. Once you do this you’ll find out the good results outweigh the bad, and then you will be empowered to take new risks.

8. Everybody is lonely too. If you’re honest and forthright you might be able to make a connection. Be vulnerable, people are attracted to that.

9. For every person who doesn’t remember meeting you, who doesn’t say hi, there are many who remember every word you said and are eager to interact with you again.

10. Those who talk longest are unaware they’re wasting your time. Learn how to extract yourself gracefully from these one-sided conversations.

11. If something is great, no length is too long. If something is bad, any length is too long.

12. Be in the mix. (This is an analogue of #6. Not only do you need to go, you need to interact. If you’re waiting for people to engage with you you’re missing out.)

13. You have unknown fans. Stay the course, they’ll ultimately surface and support you.

14. Some people refuse to deliver bad news, so they have others do it for them. Be sure to know where the bad news is coming from.

15. Just because someone’s cute and a good conversationalist, that does not mean they’ll be a good mate. You’re looking for someone with perseverance, who will also call you on your b.s. One of the greatest predictors of commitment is credit rating.

“Credit Scores and Committed Relationships”

16. Some people need to put you down to feel good about themselves. Ignore them.

17. Some people are full of pipe dreams, they tell a good story but nothing ever comes to fruition. Ignore them.

18. Deciding who to follow is one of the big games/choices of life. The people you associate with will determine your future.

19. Many famous people you hate you will like when you finally meet them, but not all. Don’t equate image with reality.

20. One day you’ll wake up and realize those people you saw every day…you never see them anymore.

21. Life is about exhilaration. We’re in constant search of it and we adhere and attach to those who provide it. We don’t want you to play to us, we want you to follow your own muse and shine so brightly that we can bask in your beacon.