Wishful Thinking

“I refuse to give into my blues”- Go West, young man at the dawn of the ‘90s.

              When you hear someone, who claims to love music, complaining that music isn’t as good as it used to be, help that person. Or, pity them. They’re wrong and they likely fall into one of two camps. The first person, despite, most likely, possessing a supercomputer in their pocket (or, even more likely, their hand) at the very moment that they decry the state of ‘music today’, simply doesn’t know that much about it. They are probably a terrestrial (a fancy word I’m applying here to radio listeners) and, if they happen to come from an older generation that relied on the airwaves to bring them the sweet, sweet aural goods, this is understandable. They just need a little guidance to be shown that no matter what era or style of music they appreciate, there is a tremendous amount of great, new music being made in precisely the way that they used to love (It’s actually out there waiting for them right now, tapping its foot expectantly, checking it’s watch and craning its neck to scan both sides of the information superhighway. When they arrive, it will cue up ecstatically, vigorous in its desire to impress them). This information (along with the assurance that if they can navigate social media, it’ll be easy to find. Pro starter tip: have them google “Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings”) should fill a music lover, of any age, with joy.

                The second person can’t really be helped, at least not sonically. This is usually not a terrestrial. They’re internet savvy enough but not really a music lover. They really do believe that they love music but they don’t. Not quite. They’re a music liker, at best. All serious music lovers discover new, great music if they can. It’s typically the main thing that they do with their own handheld supercomputers. They’re probably doing it right now (Having abandoned reading this article at the first mention of the word music, the music lover was reminded of a band they forgot to look up on pitchfork or metacritic or allmusic or interestingnewbandstocheckoutonmyhandheldsupercomputer.com and immediately went there instead). Music likers don’t miss great music. It never went away. They miss the way that music used to make them feel when they were younger. They miss the feeling of being young that music from their past allows them to tap into. This is not merely physical. It’s emotional and ideological, and it’s also quite understandable. Youth is possibility more than anything and the music that most people feel the most strongly about comes from their age of greatest possibility- their teens and early twenties.

(Some might say “But I know many people in their teens and early twenties who think that music today sucks. What of them, cocky writer?” These are hipsters or hipster-related contrarian creatures. They fall into a whole ‘nother category that would take many more essays to explore. Pro starter tip if confronted by one: Refute them with “Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings” then walk swiftly away. We now return to our main program.)

                Personally, I’ve never missed my younger days. This probably has something to do with the fact that I've looked and acted like I was in my 30s since before I was in my 20s. Physically not that much has changed, but ideologically and emotionally I realize that a little something is missing. When I listen to music that I love, new or old, I’m back in touch with that something, or at least I’m closer to it. I’m closer to the wishful thinker that I used to be as I allow myself to drift away from hyper rationality and remember a time when much more seemed possible, before I knew better how much really wasn’t. The narrowing of possibilities is not entirely a bad thing. Experience not only teaches you that good things are less likely to occur but bad things as well. There’s an increased confidence that comes with knowing that your worries are typically as unfounded as your dreams. The trick is that as the field of nervous energy fades, the romantic notions that are sparked by it, do as well. The younger me who strongly desired to dance like a fool as he walked down the street to a favorite song was prohibited by social inhibitions. The older me who became enlightened enough to realize that there actually is zero consequence to dancing like a fool on the street to a favorite song, lost much of the desire to actually do so. There seems little point when the realities of the world make even joy, seem trivial. The world isn’t worse now. Even people aren’t. They’re incrementally better. People suck, please understand, but they always have. I was just much less aware of this as most of my interactions came from people who gave me their best via speakers and screens. My younger self had a stronger connection to joy, fear, hope and passion because music made all of those things seem more vivid and present than they actually are. My older self has a stronger appreciation for those emotions but less access to them. If only the younger me and the older me could meet, they could, perhaps, help each other. I’m going to try and make this happen. Time travel not being possible since (Steph Curry, notwithstanding), no one has yet been sent from the future, this will be more of a mental rescue mission than an actual, cool J. Fox-ian one. I’m going to try and recover some of the wishful, quixotic thinking of my youth, if for no other reason than: that guy loved music even more than this one does and followed politics a lot less. I mean, here, just listen to him:

“Arrested Development is the future of hip hop! This is going to change everything!”- Young me at the dawn of the ‘90s.

Sure, he turned out to be, slightly/profoundly wrong but there was a time when it really did feel, to a 13 year old, that Speech could change everything. There was a time when it really did feel like music provided a road map to life, that all you needed to know about love was contained in Smokey Robinson’s lyrics, that no one was cooler than Prince or Aerosmith, that the first words of Aretha’s “I Never Loved a Man” were as profound as anything ever spoken or said by a human being. There’s a small part of me that still feels that way. It’s the part of me that always led me to get my heart broken, to not let go of unrealistic hope, even after she did, to believe that the world could be shaped by altruism, that altruism even existed, that people were fundamentally good and not primarily self-interested primates, that run-on sentences were fine if crafted with passion. That part of me rarely drives anymore. It doesn’t make sense to let him, not on the streets that I often travel. The horrors (you might call them memes or comment sections or cable news reciters) that line the roads of political and social discourse are murderous to any spirit of youthful belief in humanity. I’ve decided to take some different routes for a while. I’m going to try and get in touch with the cares and concerns of a time past, a time when art wasn’t merely an escape from weightier matters but the only thing that truly held weight. I’m going to try and find the desire to dance in the street now that I’ve finally found the power to do so at any damn moment that I please. I’ve always loved music. I’ve always loved music more than I loved most people, but there was a point when I loved both a little bit more. I do miss that. So, if you need me tonight, I’ll be somewhere, plowing through Seal’s discography, the older and the newer albums (A consistently strong body of work. Don't hate. It's a bad look). No matter what year the records are from, I’ll be in the ‘90s, bobbing my head and thinking about possibility. I might even dance a little, wherever I am.