“Pop Underground” - Andrew McMahon

I just completed my first listen through Andrew McMahon’s Pop Underground EP, and I was immediately moved to do what I do these days when something excites me: I texted my Mom about it, then I took to the internet. My response wasn’t one that I could share in 140 characters, so I decide to allow myself to be painfully long-winded about it.

First, background on why I was so excited:

So much of who I am is because of Andrew McMahon. I fell in love for the first time to “Konstantine” and fell out of love to “Bruised.” “Swim” made me want to sing and the first song I learned on piano was “You Can Breathe.” I remember when a girlfriend brought me her ticket that he had signed for me, and it was one of the best gifts I’ve ever been given.

Most importantly, he’s a constant reminder to me that chasing what’s popular or what’s “working” is often a fruitless and disingenuous pursuit. His modus operandi is simple: write songs that mean something, and you will always find your place and your audience. Under constant pressure to write lyrics and music that are “dumbed down” (not my choice phrasing, but that’s always what it feels like) to have the most appeal to the masses, it’s nice to know that someone is still doing it for a love of the game, and the same loyal fans have been coming to see him for 10 years because of that.

I would imagine releasing music under your own name is pretty nerve-racking. It’s about as personal as a musician can be, as there’s no moniker to hide behind, or use to justify lyrical or stylistic decisions. There’s no one else that these songs could be about, and no one to take the fall if they’re not well-received.

Now, to the EP:

For me, great art makes you look inward. It forces reflection, as you listen to the lyric in the context of your own life and compare it to the artist’s experiences.

I don’t know why listening to “Pop Underground” became so personal for me, but it did. Probably because the notion that there might be something more important and personally fulfilling than this quest for glory and recognition that I’m on frequently gnaws at me. I find myself thinking about the fragility of life and the desperate desire to find purpose through creation just about every time my eyes have a chance to roll back in my head. Is this what I’m supposed to be doing? Do I care too much about it? Too little? In 30 years, will any of this matter? Does it matter what I’m going to be thinking about in 30 years? What happens when it’s over? Will I ever be this happy again? Will I ever be this sad again?

“Pop Underground” helped me start working toward answers. It does what great music has the ability to do: make you remember how much life you’ve lived, and how much is out there waiting.

I couldn’t help but feel like he was writing the songs to himself 10 years ago, when I like to think he was probably asking a lot of the same questions I’m asking now. Asked…and then answered, by the person I hope to be in 10 years.

First, an appreciation for all he’s done; maybe he never became an astronaut or sold 500,000 copies of an album, but he still “traveled around the world shooting fireworks and falling stars.”

Next, an understanding of what’s really important: love. The 2^nd verse of Synesthesia, where he talks about his brother’s pride in his daughter and his love for his wife, makes everything else in life seem utterly unimportant.

Finally, noticing the beauty in the process. It’s hard, but it’s a “storm we’re meant to ride.” We may not know it all yet, but we’ll “learn to dance.”

I love what I get to do, I love the people I’ve met through it, and I love the life that it has created for me, but to think, at any time, that what I’m doing is the most important thing I will ever do is truly foolish. It’s nice to know, from someone who informs so much of who I am, that important as this may be, “there’s more to life than singing songs we wrote when we were in the shadow of the moon.”

“Pop Underground” paints a beautifully bright portrait of life, and the wisdom I derived is simple but meaningful: spend a little less time worrying about my lasting impact on life, and a little more time making it. 

- sstm. 

1 May 131 Permalink

What Are YOU Waiting For?

WE NEED YOUR HELP:

I try to wake up every morning asking myself one fundamental question: what are you waiting for?

We’re preparing to take 2 months off from touring (the most time off we’ve had in 2 years), and in honor of this precious gift of time, we want to know: if you woke up tomorrow with no inhibition, no commitments, and no fear of failure, what would you do?

Send us some of the items on your bucket list, along with your city and state (in the subject line), to pfbucketlist@gmail.com, and we might be able to help. #WAYWF

10 March 115 Permalink

The Perks of Being a…Singer?

Shortly after the release of our song “Sanctuary,” I started getting letters on tour. 1 page, 3 page, 10 page, anonymous, pencil, pen, in color, in crayon…lots and lots of letters. The more people listening, the more letters, now I get about 10-15 every time we play a show.

It took me a while to understand why people would write letters to a person that they have, in most circumstances, never met, or only met in a very limited context. Even harder to understand was people continuing to write letters even after, at most, I could send a 140 character Twitter response.

Don’t read that wrong – I like reading people’s stories, I’m honored by their willingness to share with me, and I do try my hardest to reply to as many as possible.  But I didn’t fully understand why they would choose to write to me, given my….constraints.

I hate being that guy who has to publicly post every time I do something scholarly or motivated, like read a book or go to the gym (I never post about it when I go to the gym) (oops – just told you that I go to the gym?) (I don’t), but I did recently cave to the overwhelming teenage majority and read “The Perks of Being a Wallflower.” As I should have expected, it was fantastic. It felt to me like a new-age Catcher in the Rye, I was of course enamored by how unfiltered and objective Charlie’s world was, and it opened my eyes to a lot of assumptions that I make about people and things and the way they’re “supposed” to be.

Most importantly, three pages into the book, I started to understand why I get letters, and why someone would write to a listener that they barely know.

The only qualifying trait for the person that Charlie wrote his letters to was that he didn’t sleep with a girl at a party when he could have. My only qualifying trait is that I wrote and sang a few songs. But I think to understand and appreciate a person’s art is to understand and appreciate their values, which is as much as to say, I think the people who get our music, get me.

Charlie felt he could invest himself into a complete stranger because it was a person who saw the world the same way he did. I hope people can say the same about me.  And as much as anyone, I understand the therapeutic value of writing. And I know just how important it is to have your story heard. And understood. And appreciated.

So write on, wallflowers and socialites. I like hearing your stories. While I may not always be able to respond, I’ll read until my eyes fall out. And I think that’s the important part.

- sstm.

8 January 800 Permalink

8 sentences.

Song: “Shake it Out” – Florence + the Machine

Since being holed up in my apartment for a while, I’ve developed a taste for quirky, introspective indie movies, and nothing will make you look at your own life, choices, and decision-making process like watching multiple, consecutive, quirky, introspective indie movies.

Every once in a while I have an interaction that leaves me discontent with the way that I’m treating people. My stomach knots up, and I feel worried and unresolved. 

I’ve taken to examining myself, like the protagonist always does in the movie. I put on my headphones, turn on a soft acoustic song, walk the streets of Los Angeles, and just…muse. Sure enough, I’ve started to untangle myself, little by little. Even writing this, I hear the narrator doing a voice over, speaking the words that I’m writing as the camera shoots me from across my dark living room.

I decide, every time, that I want to be a better person. And I think I can be, and I will be… but I forget to be.

So I wrote out the things I wanted to be reminded of every day. Little pieces of advice from when I’m looking at my life from the best perspective. This list keeps growing – eventually, I imagine it’ll get to the point where I have to wake up and read a novel of instructions, for myself, from myself, but for now it’s just 8 sentences.  It reads:

Be grateful.

Be generous.

You don’t always have to be right, and life is not a competition.

No one cares how cool you are.

Stop waiting to be the person you’re going to be.

Be who you want to be.

Remember who you are.

What are you waiting for? 

13 December 371 Permalink

lyrics that didn’t make the new album.

they say, “perfect doesn’t last,”
even the brightest stars will flicker,
and the past is still the past, no matter how many times you try to get there,

the world will still move on,
we used to stop it, and I tried
to do it all alone without you, but I guess the magic died.

- sstm.

25 November 468 Permalink

Fortunes in Life that I Take for Granted

Now Playing - “Half Moon” by Blind Pilot

The other day, while wandering around Richmond, VA, I met (or rather, observed) a woman who, at 9 pm, was putting gas in a very old mini-van that had clearly seen better days. She wore a stained nurse’s uniform, her name-tag still clipped to her front pocket. Two children clung to her legs, wearing tattered coats, with tattered hats, and tattered mittens. Their mom wasn’t as lucky – nothing shielded her from the 10 degree weather.

As she paid in crumpled bills and change, her son’s eye caught some M&M’s…and it was as if he’d never seen anything so majestic in his entire life. He asked his unheralded caretaker if he could bring them home. She was graceful. She assured him that next time, next time he would get his prize. Next time he would get all of the M&M’s he wanted. Next time he’d be able to eat M&M’s until he was sick.

He nodded, then he smiled, then he grabbed his Mom’s hand.

Then my heart sank.I was standing behind her in line, wearing a $100 jacket, listening to a $400 iPhone on $200 headphones. Worst of all, in addition to several other snacks, I held in my hand not 1, but 2 packets of M&M’s.

I was upset that day: I had spent a frustrating day on the phone with my health insurance provider, and my in-ear monitors hadn’t functioned properly at a rock show that my band was paid to play. She was smiling. He was smiling. I wasn’t.

Even in writing this, I can’t comprehend how lucky I am to have the necessities and luxuries that I never notice. I don’t have to worry about where my next meal is coming from.  I sleep in rooms where I can adjust the temperature with the push of a button.  If I hear a song I like, I can go listen to it. My diet, my clothes, and my location are entirely of my own choosing. If I get sick, I can go see a doctor, and when the bill comes, I have insurance that helps me pay for it.

I don’t know if it’s possible to fully appreciate these things unless you’ve gone without them, but this year, as a kind of Thanksgiving pledge, I’m going to try harder. I’m going to try to understand that the small-minded difficulty that I call “hardship,” doesn’t even scratch the surface of the “hardship” that millions of people wake up to every day.

Because if that woman can keep a smile on her face while she put her son’s M&M’s back, then so can I. If that 8-year-old kid can smile back, and understand, then so can I.  If he gets it, I can too. If they can stare into true hardship with that kind of unflinching optimism, then so will I.  And next time, we’ll all get our M&M’s. 

- sstm.

22 November 332 Permalink