Let’s Not Shit Ourselves
“Ambition, I’ve found, can only lead to failure”
-Conor Oberst
Bright Eyes, Lifted or The Story is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground
Pretty much. I’ve been obsessed with this song since, like, two weeks ago. It’s so powerful and crude and long and beautiful and all kinds of adjectives. It’s real, considering this came out in ‘02, this song was pretty kick ass in the moment, with Mr. Bush (the cowboy president), 9/11, the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot controversy, and all the paranoia that was going on in the moment I can imagine how awesome this song must have been.And what I like the most about it is how simple it is. It’s basically 5 chords that repeat over and over again for almost 10 minutes but in that short period of time you get to experience so many feelings that range from anger towards society to pity for this alcoholic spoiled emo kid (no offense, I <3 Conor), and all of it because of the lyrics. Well, the lyrics and the way Conor sings this, like sometimes he’s pissed off and he’s basically spitting words into the microphone, beautiful words. Like, you really get to experience his deepest thoughts. Maybe it’s an act. Maybe he’s just a normal person that likes to dramatize everything like the little emo cunt he is. Whatever it is, I really like this guy. He’s what I expect from an artist and especially a musician. He’s like the Charles Bukowski of music.
There’s lots of quotes from that song that I’d like to put here, I even thought of just copy-pasting the whole song and going over every line and what it meant to me. Maybe I’ll do it someday, I’ve actually thought about doing that with some of my favorite songs, but that would take a lot of time, I’ll do it eventually. I went with this particular quote because it reflects a lot of what’s been going on lately with my life. It’s time for me to make some decisions, life altering decisions, more specifically, choosing a career. And there’s a lot of things that interest me and that I’d like to learn and do, but most of them are really harsh to live by. The thing is, I could study something like music or literature and like it, but if I’m not good at it then I’ll end up poor. Or I could go for a more technical and normal career and end up not liking it and living a miserable life, but with money. It’s confusing. That’s where ambition comes in. Most of the times that I’ve tried to start or do something it has ended bad, or it has not ended at all. I’m ambitious but I lack the patience and the persistence. I can tell myself right now: I can do it as a musician, or, I could be a great writer, but then in 10 years I’ll end up finding out that it was bullshit. It comforts me thinking that college education isn’t all that necessary. I like to think that it’s for the imitators and not the innovators (like Jim James says). For example, if you’re a great writer, you don’t really need to go to college to make it big. And most good musicians have never attended a music school and sometimes even don’t know music theory. They’re just good at what they do and that’s not something you can really teach. You can teach to imitate, but not to innovate. And so I’ve thought of taking a normal career (but that I also like), and still do whatever it is that I want to do, if it doesn’t work out then at least I’ll have something to fall back on economically.
I heard a german word today, Schadenfreude, it means “taking pleasure in other people’s suffering”. I think I have a little bit of that. I like watching people get out of bad situations.
