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Joseph E Bird

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Where will your music take you?

Where will your music take you?

Will you find fame? Will your songs be sung by generations to come? Are arena tours in your future?

Or maybe you’ll be able to eke out a living playing gigs in bars and coffee shops.

More than likely, you’ll have to work at a real job and your music will be your avocation.

If you’re having trouble grasping that reality, you should watch the documentary, Searching for Sugar Man. It’s about the artist known as Rodriguez.

Sixto Rodriguez recorded songs in the late 60s and early 70s, but his music went nowhere. Well, it did, actually, but he didn’t know about it. While living in obscurity in Detroit, his music became wildly popular in South Africa. It wasn’t until 1997 that he learned of his fame thousands of miles away.

Rodriguez has always made music, even while toiling away as a demolition contractor. No, he didn’t create beautiful works of art, he was at the bottom of the construction food chain, tearing out the obsolete so someone else could make something better. But he always had his music.

And he was content.

Yeah, he got his fifteen minutes of fame. And the documentary has given him more opportunities. But he would have been ok even if he had lived his entire life without critical or popular acclaim. His music was, is, and always will be a part of who he is. Even if no one else knows it.

So do your thing. Share your music. What will be will be.

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give me leave to do my utmost

“I am going away forever – and I shall never, never see you again. For I have learned here that life is hard and cruel and that in this world there are things that are – impossible.” — Lt. Lorens Lowenhielm, from the short story and film, Babbette’s Feast, by Isak Dinesen.

“And, I shall be with you every day that is left to me. Every evening I shall sit down, if not in flesh, which means nothing, in spirit, which is all, to dine with you, just like tonight. For tonight I have learned that in this world anything is possible.” — General Lorens Lowenhielm Dinesen, from the short story and film, Babette’s Feast, by Isak Dinesen.

I’m not a fan of subtitled movies. I have a hard enough time following stories without trying to read the subtitles instead of watching the scene. Babette’s Feast is a 1987 Danish film (and a short story by Isak Dinesen) about two sisters who live in a small village in Denmark. It’s without dramatic action, crazy plot twists, or wildly eccentric characters. It’s subtitled for English speakers.

And it’s terrific.

The quotes above are from the same character, the first when he was young and impetuous. The second when he was older and wiser.

And then there’s Babette, a secondary character without whom there would be no story. Her motives are pure.

“Through all the world there goes on long cry from the heart of the artist: Give me leave to do my utmost.”

If you can find it, give it a chance. You won’t be sorry.

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