“phony Beatlemania has bitten the dust…”

Feeling decidedly old, insecure, passe, and uncool these days, I’ve decided to become as angry as the young Elvis Costello. To wit: have you seen the new iPhone commercial yet? The one where the Strat-wielding dork asks his phone how to play “London Calling?” (doesn’t anyone play by ear anymore?) It’s in Em, idiot wind. Play it in the cowboy chord formation for all I care. And pick up a Tele while yer at it. That’s what Strum played it on.

I suppose that part of me is angry that the music of the Clash is being used to sell offshore-manufactured hardware, even though the song itself is conspicuous in its absence (permission denied to use the actual song, I hopefully assume). After all, I feel very protective of my bands; I always have. And these days I’m feeling very protective of the Clash.

the ice age is coming, the sun’s zooming in
meltdown expected, the wheat is growing thin
engines stop running but I have no fear
cause London’s burning and I live by the river

I bought London Calling, the album, as soon as I could locate a copy; I was only fifteen and otherwise much too young to know. If you must know, it wasn’t all that easy then. I lived in a very small town, fresh vinyl was scarce, and I couldn’t exactly order it from Amazon or whatever. I was amazed to find it, actually. And I’ve been living in those grooves for the last thirty-two years.

kick over the wall, ’cause government’s to fall
how can you refuse it?
let fury have the hour, anger can be power
do you know that you can use it?

I texted some Clash lyrics to my sons a few days ago; no reply. This happened once before…I shouldn’t have been surprised. But I wanted to share some music–and a band—that I love and care about so much. I suppose I simply wanted to share something with them. My oldest has always, to his great credit, loved the Clash. I thought at least I would receive a brief acknowledgment from him. But…nothing. I’m sure he was busy. Yes, that must have been it. He’s very busy and I’m becoming more irrelevant with each passing day.

I’ve been beat up
I’ve been thrown out
but I’m not down
no, I’m not down

Well, part of it is true, anyway. Or as Hemingway wrote at the end of The Sun Also Rises: “Isn’t it pretty to think so?”

“I never did believe in the ways of magic, but I’m beginning to wonder why…”

One of the small miracles in a lifetime of miracles is that the judgments we make about music when we are very young are quite often correct and perhaps even eternal. You have to be lucky on a couple of counts, at least: first, you must have the type of heart which allows beauty and music to speak to you, and then you must have the taste and discretion to open your heart to only the purest and most sincere examples of artistic expression. You have to be more lucky than you’re able to realize at the time; but if you are (and most of us are) then you find yourself in a lifetime dialogue with music which enters directly and purely into your very soul. If you are fortunate enough, you will often be solitary but never truly alone.

This isn’t an essay about what I’m listening to, or have been listening to for most of my life. My journey is unique like your own, and for the moment I believe I will uncharacteristically keep it to myself. I just wanted to say that I know what you’re going through, whatever your age, and that in some small way we’re going through it together. Sometimes our paths cross even though we shall never meet, and it is this sense of community and belonging which helps makes music so powerful to begin with. We all want to be a part of something larger than ourselves, after all, and music is so often our very first step into the endless possibilities of a much larger world. As I said, solitary but never truly alone.

As Rilke wrote:

Music. The breathing of statues. Perhaps:
The quiet of images. You, language where
languages end. You, time
standing straight from the direction
of transpiring hearts.

Feelings, for whom?  O, you of the feelings
changing into what?— into an audible landscape.
You stranger: music. You chamber of our heart
which has outgrown us. Our inner most self,
transcending, squeezed out,—
holy farewell:
now that the interior surrounds us
the most practiced of distances, as the other
side of the air:
pure,
enormous
no longer habitable.

I think I’m numb…

When, exactly, do you reach the point where you no longer enjoy having birthdays? I suppose that it’s as much of a variable as all other elements of what some of us mockingly refer to as the human condition. All I know is that I turned forty-seven last Thursday, that I didn’t like it, and that I’ve suddenly become one of those older people who never care if they have another birthday again. This, from someone who has always appeared far younger than their years. This, I think, must be time’s revenge, as virulent as it is delayed.

I wouldn’t mind it so much, I believe, if only I didn’t feel so emotionally numb, so incapable of either laughter or tears. I have been wondering for months now, actually, if I’m even still capable of love. I wrote yesterday (although typically obliquely) of how I no longer feel as intensely as I did before, and how terrifying that is for a person who relies on intensity of feeling for their art, their intellect, for their very existence. To put it simply: if I no longer feel, will I ever write or enjoy music again? Am I even alive?

my heart is broke
but I have some glue
help me inhale
and mend it with you
we’ll float around
and hang out on clouds
then we’ll come down
and have a hangover
have a hangover…

I hope that this is merely a trial, or something experienced by nearly everyone at one point or another. I fear that it is not normal, however, and that fear is currently dominating my life. I think I’m numb, I think I’m numb, I think I’m numb…

“my heart is like a broken cup; I only feel right on my knees…”

I’ve had very little to say for months now; even my internal dialogues, usually so rich with words yearning to be written, seem strangely mute and barren. Never did I think that I would be unable to write, to create, yet now I fear that my intellectual decline has decline. Perhaps it is only melancholy, or depression. Perhaps it is too many years of loneliness, disappointment, and estrangement. Perhaps it is merely ennui, or a normal fallow period of life. Rilke, after all, waited years to complete the stunning Sonnets to Orpheus after the beguilement of an effortless beginning. Words may yet return to me. And yet…

And yet I notice changes deep within my heart which make me fear that I will never again experience the thrilling intensity of daily life itself. I rarely read anymore, for one thing. Books are no longer a comfort. Even the deep feeling of music escapes me. I am changing in ways I don’t understand yet; I don’t particularly like the person that I am becoming. Perhaps, now that I think about it, I don’t like the person that I’ve been all along.

I know there’s a place you’ve walked
where love falls from the trees
My heart is like a broken cup
I only feel right on my knees
I spit out like a sewer hole
yet still receive your kiss
How can I measure up to anyone now
after such a love as this?

You. You. You. Ah, you.