Dylan is one of a kind. He’s an icon, and as such, everyone wants to make him their own and he keeps refusing to belong to anyone but himself.
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It’s kind of hard to aim for what you think is the perfect career. You can’t control how many people respond to your music. You could be a nobody or you could be the Rolling Stones. You don’t get to decide.
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I’m not making any judgment calls about you, your kids, or whatever. What you decide to do is between you and your doctor. However, in our society, how many Bob Dylans, Picassos, Salingers, etc. are we stifling because they can’t sit still or focus very well? How many actually have a disorder and how many are creatives who are struggling to fit a system they’re not made to fit? I don’t know. I don’t have the answer, I just know it’s a question worth asking.
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At this point, I’m so far into this thing that it almost feels like another lifetime ago. While I have no problem admitting I’m an alcoholic, the reality is, I just don’t drink. I often write things because I need to hear them, and then I put them out into the world in case anyone else needs to hear them. However, I’m not writing this for me, I’m just writing this in case you need to hear it.
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I have no issue with Oliver Anthony. Seems like an alright guy. It’s not his fault that all this is happening, he just performed his song and people ran with it. I hope he gets a good payday out of it, but he’s not Jason Aldean, he won’t be number one on Apple Music again this time next year. Again, I don’t blame him, I blame all of you for propping him up just to let him take the fall. Will you be downloading his next song? Will you buy a shirt? Go to a show? Or is he just the latest mascot?
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As a general rule, I don’t like to mix entertainment and politics. This is mostly because the only preaching I like to hear is on Sunday mornings. There’s a place for preaching, but it’s not in art. Art is supposed to bring awareness and ask questions. It can’t answer those questions for you. You shouldn’t give a crap what an entertainer thinks of politics, one way or another.
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Many songwriters talk about inspiration as if it is this mystical thing and we’re just conduits from some other sphere for the song. I think that’s a bit new age for me, but while I don’t think it’s mystical, it is a bit mysterious.
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I’ve been videoing the whole thing, so I’ll be putting the “before” video up soon and I’ll post short ones on the Four Lane Road YouTube channel as I go.
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But on a grander scale, while I understand that these terms are used to better describe the music to people with words, but it’s gotten kind of out-of-control. I’m not sure if this is a product of so many people being able to make music at home and the diversity of the offerings are just widening that much or if it’s a product of our culture’s desire to over-classify everything right now.
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People want music to be magical. That’s good, music is magical, but it’s not rocket science. Back when I sold wine and people were amazed at my blind tasting skills, I told them, it’s just time, a lot of wine and deductive reasoning. Music is no different. At least recording is no different. I’m just working with my ears more and my mouth less. Most people who know me probably think this is a good thing.
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In spite of her proximity and the fact there was no one else sitting over there besides us, I asked my wife, “that happened right? I didn’t imagine that?” She just said, “well there was no one else there and she wasn’t looking at me.”
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And, I’m scared shitless. I want to quit every single day, but I talk myself out of it.
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There’s been a lot of talk recently about the lack of danger in rock and roll. It’s really hard to argue against that. As Noel Gallagher recently said, they don’t want him, they want Harry Styles. Someone to whom they can say, “go put on a dress” and they’ll just go put on a dress.
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We started listening to Morrissey’s autobiography on the drive down here. The guy is so poetic, I am going to have to go back and read it later too because he’ll describe something so beautifully that it’ll cause my mind to wander and I have to get back on track.
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It’s not magic. It’s not even real any place other than my mind. It’s a connection I am making through a combination of a knowledge and love of history and my own imagination.
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George Jones once flushed $10,000 down a toilet. In the early 1960’s that was a lot of money. Was he drunk? Probably, but alcohol just brings all the things you bury to the surface. They don’t call it “liquid courage” for nothing. Why then did he flush money down the toilet?
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It’s scary, because if you want to gain something, you have to be willing to lose something else. And people don’t like to lose. Including me.
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We just watched a clip of McConaughey on Lex Friedman’s podcast talking about True Detective and something he talked about struck me. What he said was that he reached inside himself to connect to Rust’s character. Now, I’m not an actor, but this is a lot different than what I normally here about someone preparing for a role.
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Ryan’s story has always been incredibly personal to me. I grew up 100 miles from Ryan in Indiana. He was a little older than me, but he was just another kid from Indiana like I was. I had just turned ten when he died and I couldn’t for the life of me understand how a disease, no matter how dangerous it appeared, or how scary people made it out to be, could make people be so evil to other people. Especially a kid.
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I was making music with synths long before I listened to any synth-based music on a regular basis and it was for that exact reason: I was on my own. However, making music with synths opened my world up to entire genres of music I’d either ignored or overlooked.
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