Lost in the Noise

The

The Women in Flames (Salvador Dalí)

Trinity of

Love

Death

and

Music

“I’m-a try this out right quick on ya’ll. I’m a ARTIST. And I’m sensitive about my shit. So ya’ll be nice about it.” 

- Erykah Badu

“Save me Jesus I’ve been a fool / How could I forget that you are the rule / You are my God / Am I your child / From now on for you I shall be WILD!” 

- Prince

“I'm lying in my bed / The blanket is warm / This body will never be safe from harm...” 

- Jeff Buckley

I loved to play songs for my mother, and sometimes she was patient enough to listen. Sometimes. Once, I went into great detail about how Jeff Buckley drowned after writing what turned out to be prophetic lyrics for his album, Grace. She was captivated. She loved listening to Prince with me and my sister, and agreed he was a musical genius. (Even so, we were never brave or stupid enough to play “Darling Nikki” when she was around.) We listened to Erykah Badu together on our first trip to England. 

By the time I performed with Todd Rundgren in 2015, mom had been living with dementia for 3 years. After the concert, dad brought her to Denver. I was editing the concert video at the time and she saw his face on the screen. “I know him!” she said. “I know him!” Of course she did - I played Todd every fucking day, beginning when I was a teenager living in her house. Still, it made me happy. She remembered him and by extension remembered me.

As mom’s health declined, I felt helpless. I had always pledged I would do anything for her, and I did. Before she was ill, I took her to England, Paris, Berlin, Sao Paulo, Rio De Janeiro. I bought her house when she divorced my dad so she could move to a new place. I helped her financially. But I couldn’t (wouldn’t?) take care of her when she got cancer. It just killed me to break my promise.

I used to talk to my mom almost every day. Now, all of a sudden, my reformed-alcoholic father (a.k.a. her ex-husband) was her caretaker, in charge of answering the phone. When he handed the phone to her the conversations were broken and confused. Mom was slowly disappearing. My daily routine of motherly bonding was broken. Now my mind needed something else to do. 

Well, there’s only one emotion that is stronger than worry, stronger than hopelessness, stronger than helplessness, stronger than guilt. What can your mind obsess upon which is more powerful than these things? I don’t think I need to spell it out. I set out to distract myself with an elaborate fantasy. I needed some other kind of daily connection, so I set about creating someplace for my mind to go.

That’s part of the story behind a song I'm working on called “Lost in the Noise”. The song begins, “'Love is an art', she wrote sadly”. To me, this means that falling in love with someone is equivalent to creating a fantasy world where you think you are in control. I don’t know if anyone else does this, but I mentally script out the same fantasy over and over, creating a perfect scene. “Paint a perfect picture”, sang Prince, “An image in one’s mind”. But you are not in control of the fantasy at all. Prince continues, “The beautiful ones always smash the picture. Always. Every time”. So there you are, creating scenes, dialogs, and scenarios -- creating art -- that propels your mind into dopamine rush after dopamine rush even though you know there is no reward at the end.

Falling in love (yes, it still happens when you're married) is not a happy undertaking, and to think you are in control of the process is pure folly. It’s dumb. It’s futile. But it is also fertile ground for inspiration. As proof, approximately one gajillion songs have been written about what happens when you fall in love. And of it, I have this to say: “Love is something that happens when you don’t have anything else to do with your mind”. I wasn’t bored, I was … 

…my mother was dying. And I think it was my fault. Why didn’t I send her to the doctor when we were in the UK? Why didn’t I move her in with me? Why did I take her to the nursing home with dad - that’s when she really started to decline. What kind of daughter am I? I could barely live with myself, but I had to, for my family. I gave myself the gift of survival: the gift of music, for which love is the ultimate muse.

A mere month before she went into the facility, I played mom's favorite song on the piano and she winked at me. And at then very end of her life, as mom began dying in the nursing home, one thing would excite her more than anything else. Music, of course. We played her favorite concert videos and she would clap and shout excitedly at the television. 

Love: Prince was all about sensuality and even felt he was doing God’s work.

Death: Jeff Buckley embraced the concept in his writing, perhaps unaware of his fate.

Music: Erykah Badu made sure to let her audience know it was art she was creating.

I say it is connected. “'Love is an art', she wrote madly”. Is this essay is the writing of a mad woman? Straying and unconnected? Here’s what I surmise: My mother was dying. I couldn’t cope. I fell in love and wrote some songs inspired by my newfound muse. Then mom died. It seems only logical that I can finish my song now. It all seems so fitting. What else would I do? It feels like this chapter is coming to a close ... or will the meaning of all of this just get lost in the noise?  Maybe the answer is here somewhere, in this trinity of unconnected concepts.