Music is incredibly important in my life, and even though I have not played an instrument since high school, it is crucial to my well-being and I’d like to think that it has an influence on my visual art. I listen to a wide range of musical genres, and I enjoy discovering new sounds. Every once in a while a new-to-me song or musician comes along that first hits me with an electric jolt, then melts into my mind with the deliciousness of liquid chocolate. I had one of those musical magic moments last weekend.
First of all, the 1960s and 1970s music scene is generally not my cup of tea. Especially not the more popular singers and bands. The singer whose sound sent me reeling recorded two albums in the early 1970s and was relatively unknown (at least in the U.S.) until a documentary was made about him in 2012. Being perpetually behind the times, I did not discover the documentary until last week, when I made a dash to stock myself with a few DVDs on my last day of work before the Great Coronavirus Shut Down. This isn’t a review of the movie, or a summary of the life of Rodriguez, but I highly recommend the movie (Searching for Sugar Man) and you can read a bit about the fascinating story at sugarman.org.
This is about the shock wave that hit me as I listened to Rodriguez’s songs throughout the movie. Some of his lyrics are very much tied to the time when they were written, and steeped in angry protest.
“Cause they told me everybody’s got to pay their dues
And I explained that I had already overpaid them.” (“Cause,” Coming from Reality)
Some of his lyrics transcend time and hit life experiences that all of us go through.
“I wonder how many plans have gone bad…
I wonder about the loneliness that’s mine” (“I Wonder,” Cold Fact)
Some lines were a raw nerve, something that we’ve thought, but wouldn’t even admit it to ourselves, other lines were fairly simple sentiments that we overlook for being too obvious.
“Treasure what you’ve got, soon you may be caught without it.” (“Inner City Blues,” Cold Fact)
We all need to be reminded of the obvious thoughts and the raw nerves from time to time. I’m still stunned that this product of 1970s counterculture has appealed to me. I’ve watched the movie four times now and I’ve been playing a few songs over and over on Youtube, and I am trying to remember that jolt of surprise that I felt while hearing the songs for the first time. How does one describe that to another? Each one of us experiences a song, movie, work of art, etc. in different ways. I have often found that we can more easily describe what we don’t like, but struggle to explain something that we love. We don’t like everything that we see or hear, and not everyone is going to like a particular work of art, and that’s to be expected. There is so much out there, and I wonder what I’ll discover next.
Lyrics quoted written by Rodriguez from the albums Cold Fact (1971) and Coming from Reality (1972).