Recently I had cause to once again quote my favorite Springsteen line: "But it’s a sad man, my friend, who’s livin’ in his own skin and can’t stand the company". I realized that there are a number of pop song lyrics that I’ve referred to repeatedly through my life, just as a believer will fall back upon, say, favorite verses from the Bible…or the Koran…or Kahlil Gibran. And I wondered, are these lines that stick in my mind and come readily to my tongue because they’re so catchy, or is it because they speak to my personal worldview? And my wondering led to this rundown…
What key? What key?—The title of this post comes from Stevie Wonder’s magnificent Songs in the Key of Life, and as rich as that collection of songs is, this particular line comes from Fingertips Part 2 , the first hit by the then Little Stevie Wonder. The line is not even part of the official song lyric…Stevie didn’t write “What key? What key?” During the recording someone (with a deeper voice than 12-year old Stevie) shouts it out about three quarters through. Consider how in the playing of the song something as essential as the key can be momentarily misplaced, but regained. Soon enough, Stevie and his band get back in the same key and drive the song home to its glorious conclusion. That not only captures what happens in the oft-times chaotic creative process, but What key?…what key? can serve as a handy “safe word” to help couples through an array of domestic crises: Guests have arrived early and dinner’s not ready yet--what key?…what key? The GPS has you both driving around in circles and there’s no hard copy map in the car--what key?…what key? One partner wants missionary sex; the other wants doggy style--what key?…what key? As opposed to yelling, “Asshole, you’ve ruined everything!”, What key?…what key? is a way more better way to ask for help while reminding your partner that you’re both involved in a cooperative effort.
Take a sad song and make it better…Ted Cruz was in the news this week exhibiting more of his mental problems. At one point he claimed that he turned away from classic rock to country and western music because he didn’t like the way classic rock responded to 9/11. The utter stupidity of the remark has been addressed by many others, so I won’t get into it here except to say that if the Beatles had been a C & W group, that line would’ve been, Take a sad song and play it over and over and over again. Classic rock ‘n roll is actually optimistic, full as it is with romance, bravado, idealism. Even rock songs about heartbreak are addressed to a world that seemingly cares. Take a sad song and make it better does not deny that there are sad songs, and expresses a determination for improvement. It’s an earlier American notion from when we were a more pragmatic nation, not possessed by ideologies that demand our loyalty above all else.
There are many here among us who believe that life is but a joke—I could do a post like this based on a hundred different Dylan lines that have helped shape my worldview, but I’ll limit myself to two. This one, for better and worse, probably comes closest to nailing my personal belief system if I'm allowed to stretch the word joke to include humor, comedy, and irony. It sometimes costs me comradeship with my more sincere, earnest, sentimental, and righteous brothers and sisters, but it’s a price worth paying to maintain an ironic distance from those things that drive so many others mad with frustration, resentment, and hate. We live and we die, like the mayfly, the alligator and every other creature on earth. The joke is that our superior intelligence makes us the only species to find this tragic rather than natural.
Still, a man [or woman] hears what he [or she] wants to hear/And disregards the rest. I find myself going to this line from Paul Simon’s The Boxer with increasing frequency now that I spend so much time on the Internet. Read through any online thread on any given day and you're sure to come upon thousands of examples of people talking right past each other. And it's not just about politics and religion, I once came upon a nasty exchange on which New England state had the best lobster rolls. Below is one of a gazillion (ho-ho) dialogs that make my case. First, some background: the original post Black girls' sexual burden: Why Mo'ne Davis was really called a "slut" was about how the twitter incident in which Mo'ne Davis was called a slut was indicative of what black women have always had to endure. Two women respond....
White woman: This bias everyone is speaking of is GENDER bias, race is not why men sexualize girls and women. Curt Schilling's daughter was the target of this kind of bias, and anyone remember Martina Navratilova? Men use sexist rhetoric to diminish the accomplishments of girls and women. This is a world wide problem, and all girls and women are subject to this mistreatment. The two things that are most harmful to women are gender and economic disparity. Women must stand together, all races and ethnicities, as there is power in numbers. Let's focus on our common ground and put an end to all biases.
Black woman: It is most definitely a racial issue in addition to being one related to gender. Here's a term you need to look up: intersectionality. I'm amazed you haven't heard of it yet. I'm sure you would not deny that either sexism or racism are problems, yet racist sexism targeted specifically at black women and girls is apparently beyond you. Ms. Cooper is using this incident with Mo'ne as the catalyst and basis for her discussion, but it goes much deeper than that. You should do your research before you talk. You are speaking for and over black women, and you are doing it in order to contradict a black woman. Does that really make sense to you?
White Woman: Direct your anger at someone else. I am not here to hurt or silence anybody.
Black Woman: Why so many white women don't understand anything about black women? You think you and I are exactly the same in our experiences as women and I'm just, what? Lying about how different I know my experience to be from yours? You think I would lie? You think all black women are lying? And for that matter, many other women of color? You think you can force your narrative down my throat, force me to agree that you and I are exactly equal in both our privileges and our struggles? Does that seem like solidarity to you? You think you and I are on the same page, and yet look, here we are, not on the same page. Amazing.
White woman: you don't sound like you are interested in a discussion, you sound angry. Amazing indeed.
He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone—from Leonard Cohen’s sublime Suzanne. Whenever I find myself in a "dialog" like the one above, I close it by saying (to myself at least): "I've sunk beneath your wisdom like a stone." I know it sounds a touch smug and condescending, but I think it beats the alternatives--a rude and crude "Fuck you" or the uber passive-aggressive "You just don't get it".
When you’re lost in the rain in Juarez/And it’s Eastertime too/And your gravity fails/And negativity don’t pull you through—This is the other Dylan line that I reach for most often. It's a more poetic treatment of How does it feel/ to be on your own/like a rolling stone, but basically the same idea—loss is an essential and unavoidable part of life. You can put on airs, call in the doctor, find fortune and fame, but somewhere along the line you’re going to have to make do without props. If you’re ever standing behind me in Starbucks and hear me singing this line to myself, you’ll know I’m in the middle of trying to find my way through my wit’s end.
It’s a sad man, my friend, who’s livin’ in his own skin and can’t stand the company--Back to the beginning...the lyric that set me off on this self-examination. It's from Springsteen's Better Days, and speaks rather succinctly to what my non musical guru Norman O. Brown calls Love’s Body where Brown puts forth his thesis that most of the world's troubles spring from humankind's discomfort with itself—its sense of dismemberment and loss. When Brown says that homicide is a case of suicide through mistaken identity, we need look no further for a graphic example than Andreas Lubitz crashing a plane into a mountainside with 149 men, women and children onboard who did not share his psychosis. Brown redirects us to think of murder in particular, and crime in general, not as supernatural evil, but as desperate attacks on that which we hate or fear in ourselves. Interviews with sex offenders undergoing chemical castration reveal how relieved they are to achieve some level of comfort in their own skin:
"These pills have actually given me the chance to take a step back and think, 'Hang on, you don't want to go down that road again.' I can watch a TV programme simply for what it is, without hoping the presenter would part her legs so I could see up her skirt." He still has "the odd slip" but is functionally impotent now. "I get the stirrings, but nothing else." His entire relationship with the world has changed. "Because my head isn't full of sex all the time, I'm able to speak to people. How I used to manage even the mundane things – walk, talk, sleep – I don't know."
Having empathy for those who suffer demons of the mind does not mean condoning what they do; it means understanding that what they do is part of the total human experience. It's not some alien evil beyond our comprehension. Comprehending what drives some to such madness that they'll kill masses in an airline crash or behead a lone unarmed person in the desert should not be beyond us as long as we keep in mind that at the root of most human awfulness is human suffering.