I live everyday with fear.
I live with big fears, like my family being murdered or my loved ones being humiliated, and I also live with small fears, like my shoe lace breaking while I am out walking far away from home. Then there are my "Fears on Reserve,"things like, how am i going to feed my children, how am I going to pay the mortgage and my student loans, and also what will I do if I get sick? Far off fears for a young up and comer like myself, but they exist somewhere, which brings my to my greatest fear of them all, the fear of the day in which I first have to dip into these reserve fears.
Fear and I live in very close relation. Not close like brothers, and not close like first cousins, but more like some far off cousin who lives in some obscure country town that every once in a while is damaged by a hurricane and when you see it on the news you think; "oh hey, i have a cousin that lives in that town, i should call on my cousin." But the truth is I go several weeks on end without even thinking of these far removed cousins of mine (except for maybe the one with the shoe laces, but I walk a lot at my job) and when i do hear news of some hurricane which damaged the town my cousins live in, and I do make contact with my cousins I can't help but obsess over them and over how wretchedly distant to their needs that I have been.
I should call on them every morning when i wake and i should pray on them every night before sleep. They should be always in my thoughts, everyday, always. I should invite them over for the week and show them how i live my life. I should never leave their side, show them what i eat for breakfast, how I get to work, what I do when i get there, and after I get off how I relax. show them the shows I like to watch, the Art I like to look at, read aloud to them the books I am reading, and play them the music I like to write. Talk to them at lengths about the concepts I have been contemplating and the projects I would like to complete. Sit down and listen through my Favorite Randy Newman albums together, all the way through in silence the first time, and then repeating the ones we thought the most about, and discussing how they work and where they exist in the world of ourselves.
This week it would be LAND OF DREAMS, an album that aches terribly to be genuine, and must be the closest Randy Newman ever came to offering a truthful collection of songs as a memoir of some kind, if only every song weren't off set by some curmudgeonly cynical barrier. Oscar Wilde said something once about how if a person were ever to live a life giving complete expression to every thought and feeling without self criticism and fear, then that person could change the world, and return it to an ideal. LAND OF DREAMS was Randy Newmans shot, and he backed away, he seemingly gave into that fear of himself which holds all of us from something. The first three songs on side one are the opening to a stunning memoir "Dixie Flyer" "New Orleans Wins the War" and "four eyes" begin with birth and move through a confusing childhood ending with a viscous scene of children spewing abuse at a recently abandoned and bespectacled child. Its dripping with terrifying production and violent story telling, the song leaves you waiting for the boys redemption, but the following few songs leave the narrative behind. As if Randy sensed that he might be letting too much of himself seep into his work, the next few tracks all are drenched in mainstream Pop shielding, like armor he deflects the listener with hooky radio hits filled only with Jimmy Buffet tinged emptiness. Some are quite lovely songs but much like Cyranos refusal to publish his poems, and his kept distance from Roxanne he uses flowery language not to bare his soul, but to further mask his true self which he finds too grotesque to be loved by anyone at all. When we get too close to our truths we refract into jokes, poems, and bad art along with other accepted forms of release.
This is the curious thing beginning side two of LAND OF DREAMS. This time out we find that Randy has switched the subject of the story from himself to that of a young African American boy growing up in California. The first group of songs mirror those on side one but this time slight differences, their families still struggle but this time the other children pick on the boy for being black and small rather than being Jewish and four eyed, eventually leading to life in a gang. But in the end it is the discovery of music that brings both boys some sort of release which we find out in a hilarious when taken out of context Randy Newman rap song, "Here comes the MasterMan and BabyJ."
But it's really not until the very last song on the album that Randy comes back to the type of power he started out with. The song is titled "I Just Want You To Hurt Like I Do" and it's a daring song by one of musics most brazen songwriters for sure. This song is pure truth hidden within a parody. Verse one is a man speaking to his only son on the day he is prepared to run out on his family, the boy puts his head on his fathers shoulder and the father gives this simple reason for going: "I just want you to hurt like i do, honest i do." This is a ballsy refrain from a detestable narrator only saved by knowing the type of songwriter Randy Newman is, and assuming he finds some kind of humor in the idea. He has said before that the idea for the song came about from watching the music video for "We are The World" and this point comes home in the second verse where he is no longer speaking to his child and family to to the world as a whole. He takes to a stage and speaks to the public saying
"its a rough rough world/ its a tough tough world/ things don't always go as we planned/ but there's one thing we all have in common... I just want you to hurt like I do"
here he is speaking the truth, straight to the soul of every man and woman, but he also is speaking as an Artist and for other Artists with the publics ear. Creating this kind of Art is a selfish act, writing sad songs for sad people, or writing true songs for people who only want to escape from the truth from time to time, and most of all for expecting for the public to want to hear about those things, especially when coming from a strictly personal point of view. The Artist needs the public to survive, needs someone to buy what they are selling, so that means that they must be willing to put themselves on the line completely, inside and out. Randy comes to terms with these things by lampooning the artists who attempt this type of honesty, if he can cover his tracks by playing it as a joke on someone else in the room, then he is not immediately to blame. And this comes from his fear of being seen as the wrong kind of joke. As being seen as someone who tried to be genuine and failed, thats how he accounts for the other seven songs on the album, the radio songs, the jokes, and the stabs at the mainstream. Here he reminds the world that those other songwriters are fools, and knowing that fact is the thing which makes him a true Artist.
The Art instinct is in everyone and the Art impulse has the power to drive one truly mad with not a desire to, but a need for creating Art. Like a need for liquids, or a need for warmth from the cold. It has been said that the worst artists intend something grand from their work, whereas the best artists simply create work, and you can see it in the product every time. Fearless Art is not the most complicated, and rarely is it conceptual because fearlessness isn't motivated by the intellect, it's triggered by the impulses. For this reason anything over thought or over wrought will come out over made and superficial every time.
On the second listen that final song is always played several times. It lends itself to the type of relationships I've cultivated with my company, whom I've played off many times as some sort of playful allegory (for what i have no idea) What I do know is that I cannot let these things bully me into a life which I cannot imagine, but to allow my path to present itself through perseverance and sincerity. To look forward not with FEAR of how ill get through life, but with EXCITEMENT to find out how exactly I'll do it.
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