Loose Ends 8: Songs About Success and Response to Advice
Hey kids!
Goodness, its been a while, but lots has been happening in the past week!
For a start, I visited my little bro & sister-in-law in Bonny Scotchland and experienced my first Edinburgh fringe- but more on that next time.
First, I would like to request some support, I will be doing a charity run on 13th September to Support treetops hospice, and any donations you can muster would be much appreciated, so if you can check out my JustGiving page that would be ace.
Welp, for those who have been following this silliness, I did a blog post a week or two ago on Songs About Failure. There were, as I knew there would be, a couple of songs I forgot – there is one I cannot allow to pass though, as it is an absolute favourite of mine: Big Sunglasses by Dragonette. Enjoy!
Dragonette – Big Sunglasses
‘Now I’m racing back to where I came from, I got nothing to show’
In these days of aspiration, it is easy to feel like all you need to do is move down to the big city and soon you will be one of the beautiful people, being a star and living the high life. And, with aims so high, it is very easy enough to fail – the upbeat and energetic tune of this song belies the true nature of the song, a tale of disappointment at having to return home after trying to make it big.
But, now onto a more positive not – SONGS ABOUT SUCCESS!
I’ve tried in general to pick some more left-field songs – there are some obvious ones (‘We Are The Champions’, pour example) but I wanted to make sure you walked away with something new under your metaphorical belt.
M83 – Steve McQueen
‘I woke up stronger than ever, tears of joy running down my face’
I cannot recommend the amazing M83 (named after Messier 83, the Pinwheel Galaxy) enough, particularly the album ‘Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming’ that this is lifted from. This song is, at the basic level, about have a day where you feel you can do anything – however, it also addresses (at least in my interpretation) the roller-coaster nature of such feelings, with the line ‘The whole world is a goldmine/that will melt tomorrow’.
Loose Ends 6: 10 Songs About Faliure
Hey lovelies, I’ve been a bit busy of late and so here is a slightly left field post – a list of songs about failure! Music is an absolutely fantastic way of spurring on creativity and also a great way of working through emotions (as I’ve discussed earlier on this thread, that is often the same thing) – it is also a way of reassuring yourself that you are not the only one feeling the way you do.
Even if the songs are so sad they reduce you to tears or so angry they make you punch the plaster of your wall in in a fit of teenage rage, you will be better for listening to them.
So I present to you my positive list of songs about not getting what you want…
Loose Ends 5: ‘Potential Crisis’ aka ‘Nothing Is Good When It’s Finished’
Working hard is great, being lazy sometimes is great, but failed potential is the worst.
– Campbell Scott
(with thanks to www.brainyquote.com)
These little fluffs have nothing whatsoever to do with my post, but the are adorable and I thought we needed a few more pictures round here!
Ahoy-hoy everybode!
I am writing this in both on a tight timescale and a rather conflicted mood, there is LOT going on under the surface at the moment -all is quiet in the Spekti Home (apart from rabbits nibbling, so above) but I feel there are things I should definitely be doing and am maybe not doing, which is annoying. Also I felt like there is a more serious blog I want to write but screw that, it can wait until tomorrow or something.
Time to waffle on a little more about creative stuff and that, and I promise these blogs will grow more substantial as time goes on.
Loose Ends 1: A Litany of Failure
Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.
– Thomas Edison
(with thanks to BrainyQuote)
Hello everybode! I am now 30 – no age at all, really, as I plan to live to 110, but it is an age which give you cause for reflection.
And I realise, without wishing to be too dramatic or depressing, that I have failed quite spectacularly as a creative.
As the quote above puts quite neatly (even it it was from terrible idea-stealer Thomas Edison), the essence of failure is not to do badly at something, but to fail to persist, to give up and go elsewhere.
When I was 15 I had so many ideas, and so many ambitions. I have continued to have ideas- in fact I think if I wrote a bullet point list of every workable idea I’d ever had it would fill a dictionary-sized book. And some of those ideas I worked really hard at, they filled my life night and day for weeks until I just…gave up.
I’m sure most creative people feel very similarly about their own practice. After all, you can only maintain fever-pitch on an idea so long before the original sheen wears off and you want to go elsewhere. But it seemed always to be a particular foible on my part that as soon as it required me to put the idea out there, to face the world, to deal actively with criticism, to get other people involved, I folded and started something else that I could work on quietly without relying on anyone else.
This crippling combination of misplaced pride and irrational fear of self-promotion has led to many potentially interesting things just falling down and dying, like a prehistoric creature washed up on a beach without having evolved a decent pair of lungs.
SpektiJim 