40 Years Later - We're Still Here

John Lennon was all of 24 years-old when he wrote the following:

There are places I'll remember
All my life, though some have changed
Some forever, not for better
Some have gone and some remain
All these places have their moments
With lovers and friends I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life, I've loved them all

Brilliant stuff, but goodness, to be in one’s mid-20s waxing nostalgia, it’s hard not to conclude that he hadn’t lived long enough at that point to have earned the sentimentality for the past.

At fifty-eight, I’m feeling a bit nostalgic myself, having just attended my 40th high school reunion with around 100 of my former classmates, some of whom I hadn’t seen since the day I graduated.

What I especially loved about the reunion is that none of the nonsense that occupied our adolescence matters anymore. No one cares who was popular or not, who played sports or who played in band, who dated or didn’t date or broke up with whom, who got into trouble with teachers, who was a loudmouth and who was reticent, who did drugs or who abstained. None of that stuff matters. All that matters is we’re still here, as at least a dozen former classmates are not.

But you’ve survived. I’ve survived. Sure, we’ve been kicked around some, maybe more than some, but we’re still here. We’re single or married or divorced or remarried and maybe divorced a second time. We’ve had children or not, and they’re doing amazing or they’re having difficulties, and we’re best friends with them or we’re estranged, or maybe they’re living with us or close by or in a different state or country. We don’t have grandkids yet or maybe we watch them a few days a week. We have a wonderful job or we’re cobbling together a career to make ends meet. We’ve retired or we’ve been laid off by our most recent employer. We’ve purchased a home – maybe two homes – or we’re renting or living with our ailing mother. Our parents are alive or dead or suffering from dementia or perhaps they’re still having the time of their lives. We live near the city and still attend rock concerts, or we live a secluded life in the boonies. We travel around the world or we haven’t left our home state in decades. We remember high school fondly, with dread, or not at all. We’re as healthy as can be or we’re working through our latest bout of cancer or some other challenge.

Whatever the case, you’re here. I’m here. I’m delighted that we’ve both survived. Let’s hope we can do it again in ten years.

Sara Bareilles at the Chicago Theatre

When pressed last winter to choose an artist to represent the letter B for my desert island A to Z Music Challenge, I didn’t pick The Beatles. I went with Sara Bareilles, one of those musicians who I admire and envy in equal parts, her talent so off the charts that it almost seems unfair. My wife and I attended her performance last night at the Chicago Theatre for her Good Grief tour, and just like the two previous times I watched her perform, Bareilles showed why she’s one of the most gifted singers and songwriters of this century.

Focusing primarily on selections from her new album, she explored grief and all its messy implications while still managing to be funny, relatable and uplifting between songs. Unlike some performers, Bareilles comes off as the genuine article: sincere, appreciative, funny and self-deprecating, and she enjoyed playing off an audience that included many young girls in attendance. That didn’t stop her from dropping a few F-bombs along the way, but I doubt there were many parents who minded. When it comes to strong female role models for young girls, you couldn’t do much better than Bareilles, who’s been champion women’s empowerment for decades now.

Even by the time I took my then-15-year-old daughters to see Bareilles in 2013, it felt like she had played an important part in their upbringing. Our little family musical group had already performed “Love Song” and “King of Anything” at a couple of block parties, and I admired that her songs presented a strong, independent woman who’s unwilling to accept putdowns and mansplaining from her partners, while also expressing vulnerability when it comes to navigating the uncertainties of life and the desire for real connection. These threads continue to appear in her work – perhaps with more urgency given our country’s current climate – and you might not find a more important lyric for a young girl than those from her new song, “Hands Off My Body.”

Still, I don’t love Bareilles’s new album, Good Grief. As brave and ambitious as she is lyrically, she plays it very safe musically. There isn’t a chord on the album that I couldn’t have predicted moments before, and I’d be hard-pressed to recall a melody from any of the songs, many of which resemble those of other artists: “Capsize Me” sounds too much like Sheryl Crows’s “Leaving Las Vegas,” and “Idiot Heart” summons Air Supply’s “Lost In Love.”  Still, there’s no denying the performances on the album, and I’m genuinely moved by the storytelling that so deftly captures the sundry emotions tied to the grieving process, from heartbreak and anger to acceptance and gratitude. Good Grief isn’t a bad effort at all – it’s just not as impactful as it could have been.

For last night’s concert, each member of Bareilles’s exceptional 6-piece backing band occupied different landings of a stage that was framed by what looked like the outline of a house, with rudimentary walls and rafters that lit up at various points throughout the show. Prior to the performance, the entire stage was draped with a light, white fabric that lifted just as the opening song “Home” began, the first track from Bareilles’s first studio album since 2019. This fabric was draped in various ways throughout the show, hovering above the stage and rippling with texture, allowing it to take on whatever color shone on it. It was a very basic but effective stage design, both spartan and visually appealing.

And Sara’s voice – well, dang. If someone had any inkling of doubt about her vocal prowess beforehand, they certainly don’t now. She is so skilled at doing whatever she chooses to do with her voice that what might be considered risky for some singers comes off as effortless. Every tool in her vocal arsenal was executed to perfection, with the lone exception of briefly forgetting a few lyrics, including one from the lone cover of the evening, Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody.”

Beyond that, most of the concert was made up of the Good Grief album, interspersed with just a few of her older tracks, including “Armor” and “Many the Miles,” before ending the concert with five of her mainstay tracks. I was hoping to hear “Chasing the Sun” and “Satellite Call,” but hey – you can’t have it all.

Though when it comes to musical chops and on-stage charisma, Sara Bareilles might lead you to think otherwise.

Music Royalties in the Age of Streaming

The music business and music artistry don’t always intersect happily. You might have heard stories about Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen, Badfinger, and many others who were so thoroughly screwed by the powers that be in the music industry, that you could be forgiven for thinking, “How could in the world could they have been so naïve?” But I take pity on those whose sole aim in life is to create art and who put their faith in others to look out for their best interests. Hell, I have a background in finance and am pretty adept at investing and tax strategy, but that hasn’t stopped me from being completely clueless about the music business.

Which brings me to a conversation I recently had with my friend Phil, who – like me – has uploaded his original compositions onto DistroKid, a platform that enables you to direct your songs to whatever streaming platforms you choose. It’s a good service and it doesn’t cost much. I’ve been using it since 2017, and I’ve uploaded most of my songs onto Apple, Tidal, Spotify, etc., but I never thought to investigate whether all the streams I’ve amassed (and I say this quite facetiously, because there haven’t been many) have led to some income.

When Phil asked me if I’d made any money through Distro Kid, I said, no, that I wasn’t a member of ASCAP or BMI, the performing rights organizations that collect royalties for artists whose songs are played on the radio, TV, or through streaming services. It’s always been my understanding that membership in one of these companies was a requirement to earn royalties. Turns out not.

“You don’t need to be a member,” Phil said. “DistroKid tracks streams and pays you directly.”

Say what?

That’s right. I’d been paying an annual fee to Distro Kids for nine years without noticing the tab on top of the website that says in big bold letters, “BANK.”

Oops.

Phil showed me the tab and how things work, and when I returned home I logged in and discovered that over the past nine years, my compositions have earned…drum roll please…

$79.08!

That’s right. I am officially a professional musician whose compositions are earning cold hard cash! What’s particularly interesting is that DistroKid actually tracks all the streams for you, so you can see which compositions were streamed, when, and through which specific platform. It didn’t take long for me to realize that my biggest-streaming composition is by far – by a multitude of 1000 – the soundtrack I wrote for my daughter’s short film, Preheated, but because it streams primarily on Facebook/Instagram – who pay artists virtually nothing – it’s only made me 47 cents!

Regardless, I’m thankful that there are people out there who have more of a clue about the music business than I do. Thanks to Phil, I can now pay for approximately 3 hours of health care for my wife and me. I sure hope she appreciates all the hard work I put in for our benefit.

Transgressions and Misunderstandings

The great film director Barry Levinson once told a story about a perceived slight he’d received after asking a high school classmate to go to the prom with him. She responded, “I was hoping that someone else would ask me, but…okay.” Levinson still took her to the prom, but he was furious, and two decades later at a gathering that included his former prom date, he reminded her of their conversation from high school. She said, “I remember saying that – there was someone else. But I meant what I said: It was okay to go with you.” 

Levinson concluded, “See, it was a put-down for me, not for her. I carried something around for twenty years that had no meaning for the other person. And that’s life. It’s all about misunderstandings.”

Goodness knows I’ve carried around baggage from when I was the recipient of various bullying and nastiness that had no meaning for the perpetrators, and I know the reverse is true. I once had a long conversation with a friend who recited a litany of ways I’d needled, insulted, or otherwise hurt him. I was clueless to all of them because none of them were purposely hurtful, and if I’m being honest, I didn’t understand how some of the things I’d said could even be perceived that way. But that’s life – full of misunderstandings, like an episode of Three’s Company. We all bring different things to the table, and it’s impossible for us to truly know how what we say affects the other person.

A friend of mine recently lamented about what an asshole he’d been earlier in his life, blurting out one-liners without even an inkling about the ramifications. On a particular occasion, a female classmate of his had to read an original poem in front of English class, and afterward he took his friends’ dare to say to this teenage girl, “That was good trailer park poetry,” resulting in tears, as she apparently came from a poor area and likely lived with the burdens associated with it. Looking back on it now, he said, “I had no idea what I was saying. My friends dared me to say something, and I said it. I didn’t even think about it.”

With drinks in hand, I toasted him and said, “Here’s to our evolution into decent human beings.”

We carry around our worst transgressions forever. The only things I truly regret in life aren’t the risks I didn’t take, that girl I didn’t ask out, the opportunity I let pass me by, or even the dumb thing I said that someone took in a way I hadn’t intended – it’s the times I was purposely cruel. Fortunately, these have been fewer and farther between in adulthood, but there are a few offenses from childhood that still make me shudder in shame. Hopefully if there’s an account of our time on Earth, we’re not held responsible for the misdoings we committed when we were impressionable children, so easily swayed by the goading of friends, convincing us to do something we know is wrong.

But dang, there are also things I’ve said as an adult that I’d like to take back. Hopefully Barry Levinson’s life lesson cuts both ways: perhaps there are dumb things I’ve said that I still carry with me in shame that the other person doesn’t think of in the slightest, a completely unnecessary burden.

So I’ll amend the toast I previously made to my friend: “Here’s to our continuing evolution into decent human beings.” It appears to be a lifetime pursuit.

Cherishing Real Human Contact

Miller beer has a current ad campaign that focuses on doing: “Make the plan. Forget the couch. See them in person. Do the thing. Play the game. Say hi to that stranger. Live a little.” It’s a message that probably wouldn’t have resonated before, say, social media, or the internet in general; people went out as a matter of course. But in an age when countries are setting up programs to help men and women meet each other, goodness, maybe a message that reminds people that being human means interacting with fellow human beings needs to be heard, even in a beer commercial.

Interacting with fellow humans can take many forms. A few weeks ago Melissa Kirsch of the New York Times wrote of the joys of running errands, something I also value. She described a friend who “praises the ‘soft-touch socialization’ you get while out and about: the salesperson you chat with before going on your way, the neighbor you catch up with when you run into them at the dump. ‘I cherish the connective tissue of errands, when you’re between stops, driving or walking. Bursts of activity followed by respites of solitude, each stop its own tidy episode.’”

I love this, and I too cherish the little niceties that I exchange with fellow shoppers, the local mail carrier, store clerks and cashiers. Kirsch goes on to encourage all of us not to stay in and hibernate on the weekends to chill and recharge, but instead to go out into the world and run errands.

Here again – we need coaxing to actually leave the house on the weekends to get stuff done. Yikes.

And sure, a quick chat with a cashier at a store can be pleasant – on some days even life-affirming – but this of course doesn’t constitute a relationship. Nothing is required of either party except being kind to each other (which, granted, is not always so common these days).

And this feeds into another essay I read last year, this one by Elizabeth Oldfield, who wrote a guest essay in the New York Times that addresses our declining social muscles and how we need to rehabilitate them. One thing she addressed was our impatience with human relationships that naturally lead to occasional conflicts. Instead, she says that we increasingly “avoid ties of mutual obligation in favor of frictionless transactions.” I’ve seen this in my own life; so many of my casual relationships go no deeper than a talk of the weather and sports scores.

But people need to do so much more to experience the value of real, honest, human relationships. There’s nothing more frustrating, more exhilarating, more stupefying, more joyful, more heart-breaking, or lovelier. It is the be all and end all.

But don’t take my word for it – trust the wisdom of a Miller Beer commercial. They got it right this time.