A Dream About Lightning Bugs
Page 27
You can’t sing if you’re a real man.
You can’t move middle-class living room furniture into a rock dive.
You can’t put a serious abortion song next to an irreverent joke song.
You can’t use more than three chords, because Dylan and Cobain didn’t.
The word “microscope” in a ballad doesn’t work.
Don’t put too many names in songs.
Major chords are happy, and of course happiness is vapid—not cool, so stick with minor.
But why shouldn’t I be allowed to sing a nasty cussing song one day, compose a piano concerto the next, and finish the week doing a ridiculous cameo as myself as a raving drunk on You’re the Worst—all while writing a political song for the Washington Post? Do you know what Charles Ives, one of the great celebrated American composers of the twentieth century, did in his spare time? He overhauled the insurance industry and laid the foundation for the modern practice of estate planning. Is that cool? Or is that whack? It’s cool in retrospect, but what would the Pitchfork of 1918 have thought? I doubt there’s much indie-cred for a songwriter who works at State Farm. But I say, follow your interests and let your art speak for itself. Business is based on creativity too.
Beware of little things that can erode our creativity as we grow up. One after another. One at a time, small choices eliminated incrementally. Flickers slowly dimmed. It never ends. You have to tune those voices out because your interests, those creative flickers, are truly miraculous. They are what drive us to keep seeing what’s around the next corner. Chase ’em. Life is short. After you’ve put food on the table, if you’re so lucky, then what? You follow your interests, that’s what.
I believe deep in my bones that every person is inherently creative. But I also think our creativity has to be recognized, encouraged, cultivated, protected, and sometimes even put on life support. It can’t live without oxygen. But it comes back, if you want it to, like your appetite after an illness. Like the lightning bugs when darkness falls again.
So then. What flickers do you see? What beauty glows for you that might have gone unnoticed by others?
Remain just innocent enough to keep dreaming. There’s always some motherfucker who would like to fact-check your dreams and convince you there are no flickers, only the Script™, whatever that might be for you. Too often that fact-checking motherfucker is you. It’s your own voice, whispering to yourself and to others that you’re crazy for seeing glowing insects.
And maybe you are. Until you bottle and share them.
Okay. That’s it. Fuck it, I’m done.
THE END.
2017 Paper Airplanes Request tour
PHOTO CREDITS
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27 are courtesy of Ben Folds.
28 courtesy of Marina Chavez.
29 courtesy of Adam Haddrick Photography.
30, 31 are courtesy of Jake Hanson.
32 courtesy of James Minchin.
For Emma
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Robert and Darren; Louis; Gracie; Eli; Scotty; Dean and Peggy; Chuck, Tate and Carr; Philippa; Richard and Maria; Eric and Aaron; Jimmy; Manager Mike, Mary Nell and MaryKathryn; Leo and Gwen; Michael and Jenny; Alan and Annette; Aunt Ro; Sam, Ryan, Chad C, Andrew and Jared; Joe, Leslie, Gena and Sharon; yMusic, Bob and Kelly; M.M. Pudding Jeff; Practical Nick and Amanda; Regina and Jack; Amanda F.P. and Neil; Sara B, Josh the Larynx; British Matt; Jack and Nataly; Jason and Olivia; Neurologicals Dan and Heather; Bill and Liz; Divine Neil; Adelaidian Scott, Kerri, Jett and Scott; DeAnn and ELS; Joachim and Lisa; Paul V and Jason; Piano Boy Bill; Elton and David; Al and Suzanne; Millard; the late Masterful Paul B; Ben G and the late Polly A; Jonathan, Jeffrey, Jessica and Paradigm; Rob C and Laura at Coda; Victor, Denise at Citrin Cooperman; Marsha and Marlene for putting me on stages for years; (Barely) Legal Ken; P.R. Kenny; Travelin’ Ruth and Late Checkout Lisa; Deborah, Gary, Nigel, Justin, and the NSO and Kennedy Center; Literary Laura; and of course Sara, Elana, and Ballantine. Needless to say, there are many more who made, and make, a difference. So love and thanks to the important names between the cracks.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
BEN FOLDS is an American musician who has created an enormous body of genre-bending music that includes pop albums with Ben Folds Five, multiple solo albums, and collaborative records with artists ranging from Sara Bareilles to Regina Spektor to William Shatner. His last album, which included his “Concerto for Piano and Orchestra,” was number one on both the Billboard classical and classical crossover charts. Folds, who also composes for film and TV, was a judge for five seasons on NBC’s acclaimed a cappella show The Sing-Off. In 2017, he was named the first ever artistic advisor to the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center. An avid photographer, Folds is a member of the prestigious Sony Artisans of Imagery, has worked as a guest photo editor for National Geographic, and was featured in a documentary by the Kennedy Center for his photographic works. An outspoken champion for arts funding in our schools and communities, Folds serves on the Artists Committee of Americans for the Arts and on the Board of its Arts Action Fund. He also serves on the Board of the new Planet Word museum in Washington, D.C. A Dream About Lightning Bugs is his first book.
benfolds.com
patreon.com/benfolds
Facebook.com/BenFolds
Twitter: @benfolds
Instagram: @murkanpianist
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