I still get by on those"
-Paul Westerberg
I was thinking about the lies we tell ourselves as I was driving into work. 10 years ago when I was addicted to heroin I had a bunch of lies that I told myself to avoid changing. They are too voluminous and common to list.
Then when I was in AA I had a whole bunch of lies I told myself there. I used to talk about what would happen if I took a drink. That I'd go right out and buy heroin and run up all my credit cards, quit my job, forsake my son, etc etc. I needed those lies to keep the status quo.
So I started drinking again 9 months ago. None of the aforementioned things happened to me. Not at all.
I had lies I told myself while I was married.
So what lies am I telling myself now to keep things as they are or to avoid changing? And are most of them based on fear?
And maybe lie is the wrong word. Cause I earnestly believed those things. But as Westerberg says they were "wonderful lies". I believed them. And like any good lie there were parts of the truth in them.
My point: none, just musing
Speaking of Westerberg his new record Folker is out. (This link to the Amazon site is given with a bit of trepidation and disgust because framing the Westerberg record is the ad for the Paris Hilton collection. I'm not sure if a bigger juxtaposition could be displayed.)
Anyways, so it’s the new Westerberg record. And like every solo album he has released and as I recall the last few Replacements records, I initially didn't really like it. But a few more listens and I get slowly dragged in.
An aside: Is there much more pleasure than the way a great record unfolds? There is always the song or two that I can't quit thinking about which keeps me playing the record and then slowly another melody gets lodged in my head. I hear another part of a song that catches me. And if the record is good then this goes on and on for a good while. I love it when I can’t wait to hear a new song. When I think about when I can get to my car or somewhere else to play it loud.
Right now the Westerberg record has been pretty much stuck in my head and CD player. The only melodies in my head for the last couple weeks have either been his or my own.
But I can't say who else would like this record. At points it sort of sucks. But the strange thing about him is that even those moments I come to like. There are some clunkers of lyrics throughout. Off key singing...etc, etc.
But the thing I have always most loved about Westerberg is the contradictions in himself that he expresses very well in music, even though it is sometimes unintentional. He is brave and scared, smart and dumb, brilliant and dull, happy and sad, wanting love and running from it. He wants to be successful but also scoffs at it.
And that is what I most relate to. That is why I relate to him more than any other artist. He embodies the paradoxes that are part of any real life, any closely examined life. He doesn't know what's going on. Sometimes he tries to convince us that he does but it's all bluster. And there isn't any resolution to the issues. "Sixteen Blue" doesn't offer an escape or any fancy advice for the poor befuddled 16 year old. All it does is say that he understands.
A quote from Leonard Cohen:
""If there is anything in my own work it's because how I cop to my own experience," Cohen told L.A. Style.”That's what I became. I became a writer and as my friend (Irving) Layton always said, a poet is deeply conflicted and it's in his work that he reconciles those deep conflicts. That place is the harbor. It doesn't set the world in order, you know, it doesn't really change anything. It just is a kind of harbor, it's the place of reconciliation, it's the conssolumentum, the kiss of peace."
"its in his work that he resolves those conflicts." Amen brother amen.
"it doesn't really change anything"
But when the person does that with something that connects in the way music can then it does change something. It allows others to feel that kiss of peace even if it's only temporary. And in a world where there aren't simple answers, where paradox reigns supreme when we get to feel that it makes a difference.
And when you have a voice like Westerberg and can play guitar like that all the better.
So if you want to listen to it and appreciate the new Westerberg, then take off your critical hat. It's an appreciation of what’s good and bad about all of us. There isn't any clean up, packing and superficiality here. If you’re after that, click on the Paris Hilton link above and have some fun baby.
(It appears the lovely Paris Hilton framing isn't always there. But you'll get some other lovely ad and if you're lucky and have been reading your gossip magazines and watching MTV maybe you'll get to see her. Too bad it's not a link to the famous video.)
