Socially Un-Aware

I've been in the studio lately, trying to play musical catch up from my little incident in December. Slowly but surely I managed to get all the instrument tracks, save one song that needs to be redone, complete.

One song in particular had been a royal pain in the ass. It started as trying to cop the Motown feel, and ended up sounding half-baked, no matter what I did. My vocal performance wallowed in mediocrity, despite the fact that I selected some time-tested melodies to run with.

And the lyrics? Oh, the lyrics were a damned disaster. Probably the biggest pile of crap in the whole project. I was feeling good about things when I penned them to paper, because it took me about half an hour to lay down the whole song. That'll show me.

Y'see, here was the problem, the song originally started off being titled "Face Value," and was supposed to be about how people judge others based solely on appearance. The song morphed into "Strange Face," which was the same concept, but a bit more all-encompassing. Y'see the original lyrics focused primarily on race, and I felt that the words needed to be broadened to include sex, preference, and social groups. Y'know, who doesn't have issues with being judged by how they choose to look right?

Now, with new instrumentation, and the need for new vocal melodies, it's guaranteed that the song will become something else entirely, and that the whole "Face" thing will disappear completely. And that will mean that the second BGO album will, most likely, not have a single song that brings awareness to any social causes. Considering that "Fuzzy Jank" only had one song that remotely qualified as being radical, I'm starting to think that I may not be the kind of person who can deliver the revolution unto the masses. I just can't seem to make anything that would run with the leftists, liberals, anarchists, rebels, progressives or good old-fashioned rabble-rousers. I don't ally to causes all that easily, or used my words to move culturally-defined mountains, or anything like that. And judging from my latest epiphany, I probably never will. I just can't get past how biting social commentary can be so whiny.

And no, I'm not saying social commentary is inherently whiny. Just when I do it.

Chuck D can speak about all the wrongs in the world and everyone's guaranteed to go "Oh fuck yeah! Down with the man!" But when I start getting up in arms, it almost always comes out like "Waaah, why don't you like me?" I just can't bring the kind of intelligent fury to my lyrics that's necessary when you're hitting the big button items like racism, poverty, or the politicians you love to hate. When it comes to those topics, you have to balance intellect and fury. If you just yell and scream about all that's wrong, it sounds too much like bitching. But if you're too intelligent with the words, nobody can understand you enough to get riled up. It's a double-edged blade people. And I have to admit that I probably don't have the skill to wield it.

Maybe it's because I invest too much time in listening and thinking. Not meaning to say that other revolutionaries don't listen and think, just that I tend to overdo it. I spend a lot of time watching the bad people of the world, than challenging them to arm-wrestle. Kind of perched in the tree cougar-like, waiting for them to screw up in some large way. Sometimes they do, and I get to pounce recklessly. Sometimes they're smart enough to cover their own asses, and I remain in my tree feeling very frustrated.

Of course, there's also my battle ethic. I like to wage my wars person to person, select my enemies one at a time and deal with them thusly. Truth be told, it's a lot harder to fight racism than it is to get into it with a person who is racist. When dealing with the individual, you can challenge the stereotype, discuss the perspectives, and drop a bit of education on the side. That person can either walk away being a bit more open-minded and knowledgeable about race relations, or they can walk away knowing never to screw with the person they just talked to. Either way, it's a solid win for the home team. Now, if I applied that strategy to racism as a whole, well it'd be the equivalent of mouthing off to the Klu Klux Klan, armed with nothing but a BB gun. My dedication to the cause would be solid, but short-lived.

Basic warfare people. If you wanna make a good stand, don't put the army before the solider with a gun pointed at you. Keep things in perspective. Don't let the numbers bog you down. And make no doubt of it, they can bog you down. Anyone in the revolution business knows that the odds are stacked against you from the outset. Keeping that data on the noodle is a quick way to burn out and end up drunk in a dark room watching "I Love Lucy" reruns.

Of course, that could be what comes with dedication to a cause, I don't know. Perhaps I really am a lame-duck revolutionary. I'm completely unwilling to don shirts and inscribe myself with tattoos so I can scream about injustice. And despite being completely underwhelmed with the people in charge of this nation, I have precious little interest in raising fist-to-sky over their bigger, more obvious fuck-ups. My battles are usually private, soft spoken, and free of war cries. Definitely lacking in adrenaline and sex appeal, I must confess.

As such, my music remains revolution-free. Happy compositions with sad endings. No politic-tinged fury, or even a chirpy "We shall prevail" to be found. It is a little depressing to realize that. I'm definitely an advocate for change. Less hungry people, less excuses to drop explosives on each other, artists with heart and soul getting more attention than artists with good producers and big boobs. I dream about that sort of thing regularly. Wouldn't mind it a bit if I was able to contribute to any of that. It just seems so unlikely that I'll be able to, that's all.

But, who knows? Hell, John Lennon was able to make a few changes just by sleeping in with his wife. I guess anything is possible.