JPF Home Page Forums General Messages General Message Forum Why don't Lyricists learn an Instrument?

There's a larger failure than not trying.. it's spending lots of your life TRYING to do or be something you don't want. I know people who have wasted large parts of their lives pursuing all sorts of things (or not pursuing) because of peer pressure, family pressure, societal pressure or some expert making them feel like a failure if they don't do what they tell them. The reason why it's a larger failure than not trying is because it means not only are you not trying (or spending enough time trying) what you REALLY want to do, you waste a portion, large or small, of our limited lifespans doing something only because someone else wants you to. And often that sucks all the passion out of your soul and many never get it back before it is too late.

We all know the story since most of us have suffered from it. Many of us were told not to pursue music, but rather get a "real" job. It's true making a living wage in music can be brutally hard work even for the very talented. But when folks are forced to not go that direction because they need to "try" to work at a bank, or selling shoes, or joining the right group, or marrying the right person (rather than a person you really love) or even desperately trying to write music when you really just enjoy writing lyrics, it's a waste of your life you can never get back. It's akin to murder in a way where someone elses rules or agenda or pressure forces you to loose years doing what would actually make you happy. And even for the least talented among us, you can find paying work on the fringes of whatever you dream of doing to pay the bills and remain close to what you love.

Lately I've seen some folks with totally good and honest intentions try and force their opinion and will on others to do or not do something they enjoyed doing because they weren't good enough at it. STOP THAT CRAP! I know you think you're trying to help, but be careful because encouragement in something someone WANTS to do is VERY different than encouraging people to do something they have no interest in or worse, encouraging them NOT to do something they love.

They say that if someone can scare you off of making music, you may not have had the passion to stick with it in the first place. But even that old cliche isn't always true. Sometimes people feel as hopeless and forced to give up what they love as others feel trapped in a abusive job or an abusive marriage.

Perhaps it's the year I've just had and the near death experiences and the fact that I've been thinking back about all the times in my own life even a minimal amount of positive encouragement might have made things so much easier and perhaps I would have started JPF back in College when I first launched an org. (which I called Just Plain Folks as well) to help actors, writers, and other theatrical students break the back of the elitist theater clique and even more elitist college professors that kept all but a handful of kids out of every show. I had one English professor who came to my aid when they tried to shut all of us out and it encouraged me enough to make a big media event out of the David versus Goliath battle we had to put on our own show outside of the system and I wonder if I would have buckled without her small but critical support. And at the same time it helped me overcome all the people who told me NOT to buck the system and try to do my show outside of the box because I wasn't experienced in doing such things and should leave all that to the insiders who did all the shows, because they knew best and who was I to think I could do it without them and differently than anyone else had ever done it. I moved ahead on my own with that little positive nod of support and our show blew the official sponsored college insider show away both in the reviews and with our sold out crowds every night (and we raised money for charities on top of it). I was told I had no business doing it, but I did it anyway and succeeded. But once out of school, I didn't have the guts to fight the pressure from those telling me to enter the safe job market (corporate retail management) rather than pursue a job where I could use even the slightest amount of creatity or any of my real skills and rather than moving forward with JPF back in 1986. Instead I went through the motions (with hollow and meaningless career success as well as predictable failures). Though I did have moments where I stopped the madness and made music full time, I always got dragged back into the corporate world until I left it for good in 1996 and relaunched JPF full time.

For a host of personal reasons I've always been someone with a passion for helping the underdogs. I've reflected a great deal on how life might have been very different if I'd had the slighest support when I was the underdog. Since I can't do anything about that (back then or even now) all I CAN do is pursue helping as many other underdogs as I can.

All of that to say when I see some bullying around here, even though it's not somebody beating up the little kid and stealing his lunch money, but rather some well intentioned people who probably have no clue they are doing it (though some clearly do) it riles me up and reminds me what I found so important about this work in the first place.

But that's just my opinion, I could be right.

Brian