Earlier in the week I said that I was reading The Last Holiday, Gil Scott-Heron's memoir, as a sort of devotional this week in advance of the MLK holiday tomorrow. There is a particulalry poignant section in which he describes standing in his mother's room after she had died,
"I was repulsed by my lifelong insistence on fucking isolation. Some of it has been justified by a real fear of the consquences awaiting those who befriended me and drew close, tried to settle within an umbrella's ceiling of cover. When I was younger, everything in life was an experiment and a new thrill. On a rainy day, you could find the high-end joy of another body, another soul, squeezing shoulder to shoulder, giggling, sharing warmth deliberately, two midgets who gallop on marinette legs, now jammed in a space that posed a challenge for one. I loved that kind of silliness, but life has taught me that I have to avoid that kind of close. There was no one I could be close to now."
I can relate to that tendency to isolate, it is very easy for me to withdraw and isolate and I can disconnect very easily, too easily sometimes. So I was deeply affected by this section as I saw something of myself in it. I also realized that when it comes to the music we enjoy, there are probably things that are appealing to us, perhaps even unconsciously, beyond the music itself. When I explore the musicians whose work really appeals to me, I discover much in their lives that has echoes of my own journey. That is not to say that all the musician's I like have the same tendencies or emotional and mental issues that I do, just that sometimes there are unspoken impulses that make themselves known in the music and that perhaps contribute to why it is that I like this or that artist and not others.
Another interesting insight about our connection to "what we like" cultural artifacts... I must now delete those Sex Pistols albums from my IPod :(
Posted by: Seeward | 17 January 2012 at 11:57 PM