{"id":4083,"date":"2011-04-27T07:02:32","date_gmt":"2011-04-27T15:02:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/?p=4083"},"modified":"2011-04-27T07:02:32","modified_gmt":"2011-04-27T15:02:32","slug":"how-does-it-feel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/2011\/04\/27\/how-does-it-feel\/","title":{"rendered":"How Does It Feel?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m having a hard time adjusting to Los Angeles.\u00c2\u00a0 When I left Colorado yesterday, it was dumping.\u00c2\u00a0 And there’s nothing like a snowstorm to make you feel fully alive.\u00c2\u00a0 The precipitation quiets everything, and in the silence you can almost hear your heart beat, it’s purely primitive, it’s just you and the elements.<\/p>\n

Whereas SoCal is all sunshine and traffic.\u00c2\u00a0 Back in the city everybody’s got somewhere to go, something to achieve, savoring nature, life, is out of the question.<\/p>\n

And I’ve been sitting here listening to songs on my headphones, creating my own reality.\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t want to walk outside.\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t want extraneous influences.\u00c2\u00a0 I want to revel in my own private world.<\/p>\n

And listening to tracks I realize staying power has to do with honesty.\u00c2\u00a0 And charisma.\u00c2\u00a0 My favorite songs weren’t made to be hits, the Top Forty wasn’t even in the equation, even though some of these cuts achieved single success.<\/p>\n

Like "Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald".\u00c2\u00a0 It sounds like you too are doomed on Lake Superior.\u00c2\u00a0 Well, maybe not doomed, but the possibility is there.\u00c2\u00a0 The images are better than those in any Spielberg movie.\u00c2\u00a0 Gordon Lightfoot nails the experience of the futility of fighting nature.<\/p>\n

And then there’s Tom Rush’s "No Regrets".\u00c2\u00a0 Breakups are so confusing.\u00c2\u00a0 You can focus on blame, but the real issue is loss.\u00c2\u00a0 We human beings are really just animals.\u00c2\u00a0 We grow close and feel the absence when our partner disappears.\u00c2\u00a0 Whether we do the leaving or not.<\/p>\n

And then I heard "Like A Rolling Stone".<\/p>\n

No, not the famous Bob Dylan rendition, but my favorite version, slowed down, so the lyrics sink in.<\/p>\n

I’ve written about Michael Hedges’s version of "Like A Rolling Stone" previously.\u00c2\u00a0 But you couldn’t hear it, not the take that rivets me.\u00c2\u00a0 There are covers on YouTube, but nuance is everything.\u00c2\u00a0 You can play the same song every night, but you tingle when you get it exactly right, you know, and so does the audience…<\/p>\n

\n
"It’s nice to be an entertainer, you know it?
At least while you’re on the stage."<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Michael Hedges is not plying the boards anymore.\u00c2\u00a0 Going home from a gig he met a tree.\u00c2\u00a0 But this rendition of "Like A Rolling Stone" is purely alive.\u00c2\u00a0 And now through the magic of Grooveshark, our favorite questionably legal music service, you too can hear it:<\/p>\n

\n
Like a Rolling Stone
Michael Hedges
Live 07\/06\/97 Bear Valley, CA<\/a><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

At some point in the future, rights holders will embrace the ubiquity of music.\u00c2\u00a0 Will beat the bushes to get every version available for listening, realizing it ultimately benefits them, and the fight to keep music down is futile.<\/p>\n

How does it feel<\/span>
To be on your own<\/span>
With no direction home<\/span>
Like a complete unknown<\/span>
Like a rolling stone?<\/span><\/p>\n

That’s what it’s like being a musician.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s a leap of faith, now more than ever.\u00c2\u00a0 No one’s interested in you.\u00c2\u00a0 You can make an album, but it’s purely for fans, of which you’ve got few.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s a calling.\u00c2\u00a0 You need to do it, otherwise it’s just too hard.<\/p>\n

How can you be so good that people want to pay attention?<\/p>\n

You can buy insurance, work with someone already famous, so your music sounds just like everybody else’s, so you can advertise the connection.<\/p>\n

Or you can realize you suck and it’s going to take you years to get good and you’ve got to endure the abuse, if you’re not completely ignored, until you get good enough.\u00c2\u00a0 And then you’ll only grow if you’re different, and we live in a world where people want insurance.\u00c2\u00a0 Self-reliance is a scam people want to employ to cut taxes, but they truly want a safety net.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s no safety net for a musician.<\/p>\n

I like that Hedges changes the groove, slows the song down until it’s something different.\u00c2\u00a0 A relative in whose face you can see the ancestor, but it’s not the same.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s more than one way to be original.\u00c2\u00a0 Michael Hedges makes "Like A Rolling Stone" his own.<\/p>\n

And with the lyrics slowed down, they make sense, they penetrate, whereas they slide by as part of the parade in the original. Instead of someone yelling at you, they’ve got you one on one and they’re all calm and you can’t escape their truth.<\/p>\n

And there are guitar accents for emphasis.\u00c2\u00a0 And at times Hedges almost yodels, drawing your attention.<\/p>\n

And nobody has ever taught you how to live on the street<\/span>
And now you find you’re gonna have to get used to it<\/span><\/p>\n

That’s what being an artist’s all about.\u00c2\u00a0 There are no guarantees.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s like there’s a fork in the road, and you go left when everybody else goes right and all you’ve got are the clothes on your back and twenty bucks in your pocket.\u00c2\u00a0 If you go right, you’re on "American Idol", you’re working with Dr. Luke, you’re not living on the street, you’re not alone, you can certainly see the direction home, whereas the path behind an artist is erased, which is why you see old wannabes playing covers when their hair is gray, they can’t go back.<\/p>\n

Are you ready for this level of truth, of honesty, of desperation?<\/p>\n

Yes, being an artist is the loneliest life you can ever lead.\u00c2\u00a0 Even if you make it, only a small circle will know who you really are. But your energy will be so electric that people will be drawn to you, while you’ll be pissed you’re famous and can’t live a normal life.<\/p>\n

But you were never normal.\u00c2\u00a0 Artists never are.<\/p>\n

But the thrill of being an artist is you don’t let others get your kicks for you.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s the audience, living through you.\u00c2\u00a0 If you’re not on an adventure, if you’re not testing limits, no one cares.<\/p>\n

So now you know why we’ve got so few artists.\u00c2\u00a0 Because few are up to the challenge.<\/p>\n

But we’re beating the weeds incessantly looking for them.\u00c2\u00a0 To illustrate life, to point us the right way, to nudge us forward.

When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose<\/span><\/p>\n

Yes, this is the song with the famous line.\u00c2\u00a0 Are you willing to have nothing?\u00c2\u00a0 And to stuff down your envy?\u00c2\u00a0 Are you willing to put all of it down on the roulette wheel of life, betting on yourself?<\/p>\n

We’re looking for a few good men and women.\u00c2\u00a0 People who don’t volunteer, who aren’t looking for acclamation, but were going down the road anyway.<\/p>\n

You know who you are.<\/p>\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m having a hard time adjusting to Los Angeles.\u00c2\u00a0 When I left Colorado yesterday, it was dumping.\u00c2\u00a0 And there’s nothing like a snowstorm to make you feel fully alive.\u00c2\u00a0 The precipitation quiets everything, and in the silence you can almost hear your heart beat, it’s purely primitive, it’s just you and the elements. Whereas SoCal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-13R","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4083"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4083\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4084,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4083\/revisions\/4084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}