What is success?
Whenever I wish upon a star, a fountain or the candles of a birthday cake I think I am not alone in wishing for the health of loved ones and our planet, but we all have little personal wishes and secret desires and as an artist a favourite wish throughout the years was to be successful with our music.
As the years went by and the recognizable success did not match our expectations I caught myself considering the definition of the word success. What is to be successful in music? If you write the most beautiful song ever and nobody hears it, is it still a success?
Humans have always had a struggle in their hands to value art. We can understand exchanging currency for food and even currency for currency, but what is the value of art? We seem to shuffle into considering some pieces of art of a priceless value while others of no value at all. You might find a piece of classical music beautifully executed is worth less than something concocted at a basement with a computer or a blue ball on top of an unmade bed is more valuable than a watercolour.
There is also the issue of a doctor or a teacher going to school, training to exercise their profession and eventually working in their trade while a musician or an actor might find themselves to the mercy of some abstract quantification of success and never being able to make a living from their trade.
What to say of artists like Nick Drake, my favourite ever, who acquired cult status after his death but did not enjoy such recognition in his lifetime? If he had not found such status would his music be any less divine? Alzo Fronte who found some cult status later in life, being discovered by the Japanese and having a heart attack before he could finally enjoy the fruits of his work. I sometimes think I shouldn't wish for any recognition anymore as that would probably be my fate at my age!
Bearing on being cliché and complaining about contemporary music and the music business and its lack of originality and talent as well as standardization at a massive scale, I often ask myself such questions as what level of recognition and success would make me happy? What would make me retire from this life feeling gratified with what I have achieved, and the more I ask the more I get the feeling that the answer is being content with what I produce regardless of any other factor. I am a dreamer and I like to believe that somewhere in the Universe there is some sort of bonus points you accumulate for being charitable, good to others, to your planet and producing beautiful art it does not matter by what means, being music quite high there in the scale.
I hate the fact that Lewis Taylor decided to be a plumber but his music has touched me and that matters, for me he is highly successful. When I listen to the Plain Healers from New Jersey, in my world they are as successful as Led Zeppelin because their music has touched me just the same.
Success is creation, when a song or a piece of art is created it is successful. It matters not who has listened.
