Lesson 4: Boredom

Boredom. Boredom. Boredom. Repetitiveness often leads to boredom. Boredom often leads to depression. Who cares where depression leads, because if you're depressed you're generally apathetic too.

I read some guy say that boredom was the original sin, that is, it was boredom that led Eve to taste the forbidden fruit (I'd like to quote it, but I haven't got the foggiest where I read it or who wrote it).

One must avoid boredom like one would avoid a fat chick in a bar. Or to be politically correct, a fat person in a bar. Whether or not it is the original sin, it does severely suck, and it thrives on repetitiveness. Being in the same place for too long. Doing the same activity for too long. Being married for the same person for too long. You get the picture.

So what's the opposite of repetitiveness? Variety. We've all heard the saying "variety is the spice of life", but I would disagree with this statement. It works on the idea that as spices make food more enjoyable, so does variety make life more enjoyable. The problem with this analogy is that I don't think it indicates just how crucial variety is to a happy life. Food can be eaten without spices and still be enjoyed, whereas I really doubt whether a life without variety can be enjoyed. I know, because I spent all of today doing shit all.

Song of the Week III

Keep on Rockin' in the Free World by Neil Young. It's just awesome, the lyrics and the music both.

This song kind of makes an apperance at the end of Daughter on Pearl Jam's Live on Two Legs LP. After the songs breaks down (is that the right term?), Eddie starts singing the second verse of Rockin'. I never knew it until recently, I thought it was just some cool little ditty that Eddie made up. I love the lyrics to that part:

I see a woman in the night
With a baby in her hand
Under an old street light
Near a garbage can
Now she puts the kid away,
and she's gone to get a hit
She hates her life,
and what she's done to it
There's one more kid
that will never go to school
Never get to fall in love,
never get to be cool.

Nothing flash, nothing poetic, but it suits the song so well, in fact, it suits the Daughter breakdown better than it does Rockin'. And to me that's what great lyrics should do - suit the song. Some people like Chuck D from Public Enemy think the opposite, that good music just supports the lyrics, gets people to listen to them. That's cool, I understand that point of view, but to me the music is number one.

Quote of the Week II

My favourite quote ever: "Without music, life would be a serious mistake" - Friedrich Nietzsche.

To me, that just sums it up. If i don't play music for a while, I get achingly depressed, and I start pondering what got me into the low state. It's not until I pick up the guitar again, or sit at the piano, that I realise what the problem was - a lack of music. Sometimes I can get a similar experience listening to music, but it's not nearly as common, there's nothing quite like making the sound yourself, being an active participant in the process of sound creation.

What is it about music that makes it so special? Well, first of all, not all music has this transcedental effect, in fact, some music does the opposite. Like most things, like food, sport, art, socialising or even life itself, music at its best is phenomenal, but at its worst its horrid. I'd like to ignore this crud, this "music", though, because although there's a heap of it, there's plenty of great music to keep us busy.

And what makes great music? Isn't it just completely subjective? No doubt there's an element of subjectivity involved, so much so that it's impossible to pinpoint what "great music" is. Maybe you hear a song once and think it's unbelievable, it takes your mind to a higher place. Someone else hears it, and think nothing of it. Can it be considered great music? A couple of years later, you hear the same song yet it has no effect on you whatsoever, apart from a bit of nosatalgia perhaps. Was it ever great music? I answer yes to both these questions. Beauty, sometimes, is in the eye of the beholder. But that's not to say that it's not beauty.

I think the best way to describe great music is to quote Louis Armstrong - "if you gotta ask [what jazz is], you'll never know". I might have got the quote a bit wrong, but you get the drift - great music hits you. If you find yourself asking "is this really great music?" then you can rest assured that it's not. This is clearly a mammoth philosophical topic, and I've sidetracked from the original question: what makes music so special? The best answer is this: if you have to ask, you'll never know.

Note: I've also seen the quote translated as "Without music, life is meaningless", and "Without music, life would be a mistake". Neither of these quite have the punch of the first, though. The word "meaningless" implies a waste of time, implies that something is missing. And mistakes happen all the time. But a serious mistake, that implies agony, that implies active suffering.

Song of the Week II

American Baby by the Dave Matthews Band. Apparently they're really big in the States, but you wouldn't know it here in Australia - I've never heard a song of theirs on the radio, and they're barely seen in the charts. While I'm not a massive fan of their work, it is pretty solid stuff, and this new track is one of my DMB favourites already. Definitely the most played song on my system in the past week, and I like it more each time I hear it.