Posted By BillHeise on July 20, 2009

I realize that I am old and therefore don’t have as much of a handle on the music business as younger people. And I don’t have as much interest in music as I once did. The older I get, the harder it is for me to take a lot of interest in music as I did when I did not have a job or any responsibilities. This is one reason I think people turn conservative when they get older. They simply don’t have as much time to wade through useless stuff looking for needles in haystacks of crap like they used to.

When I was a young man, I could spend all day listening to albums. These days, I’m lucky if I get to listen for two hours a week. I tend, therefore, to find certain producers to identify music that I find promising. This allows me to weed through the haystacks in search of rare needles. This practice allows me to discover artists who, perhaps, I would not have otherwise deigned to listen to.

Linda Perry is one such producer. Her 1992 hit, with her group 4 Non-Blondes, What’s Going On? was a masterpiece of frivolity, and I must say I didn’t especially like it at the time. I was in graduate school, of course, and I thought (perhaps rightly so) that the lyrics were emblematic of people having given him on those old themes that has excited me when I was a younger man. In place of Achilles Last Stand, with its evocation of great historic themes, Perry seemed to me to have abdicated paying attention to the search for any deeper meaning in life:

I realized quickly when I knew I should
That the world was made up of this
Brotherhood of man
For whatever that means

Okay, I could accept that. She was (I thought at the time; I do not think so now) a stupid musician who did not have the intellectual weight to appreciate the deeper things in life. Instead of trying to figure out her position in the world, she abdicated:

So I wake in the morning and I step outside
And I take deep breath and I get real high
And I scream from the top of my lungs
What’s goin’ on
And I say hey….
And I say hey what’s goin’ on
And I say hey….
I said hey what’s goin’ on
Oooh….
Oooh….

This state of affairs of her not knowing what was going on did not stop her from calling for a revolution.

And I try, oh my God do I try
I try all the time
In this institution
And I pray, oh my God do I pray
I pray every single day
For a revolution

More misplaced idealism, I thought (I still think that, BTW). She’s concerned about the brotherhood of man, despite her creeping doubts about its possibility (“whatever that means”). But even though she doesn’t understand it she wants a revolution to bring it into view. There are other possibilities, of course; but she does not acknowledge them any more than it producers of Hair acknowledged that their view of the world might be flawed.

In 1992 I was still committed to finding a way back to the answers that have been promised to me by the Moderns, but I have since given up on my quest. And I’ve come to appreciate 4 Non-Blondes’ lyrics in much the same way that I appreciate Nina Hagen’s lyrics, as pieces of incomplete cultural history in the (ultimately futile) American quest to close the metaphysical circle within our individual selves.

After 4 Non-Blondes

After their one hit, the group drifted apart, but not before recording a cover of Led Zeppelin’s Misty Mountain Hop, with its final chorus of “I really don’t know,” which I recognized as a key idea in the thought of Linda Perry.

But Linda went to work behind the scenes as a writer and producer, and here her work has been spectacular.

She got her first major break when she was invited to produce Pink’s Missundaztood. She wrote the song Let’s Get the Party Started, as well as many others.

After that album, she went on to work with Christina Aguilera, writing the song Beautiful for her.

This song, with the notion that “Words can’t bring me down,” sounds more like an optative hope than an accomplished statement of fact. I can’t imagine that Christina Aguilera actually believe that “words can’t bring me down” in a song that features the lyrics

Now and then, I get insecure
From all the fame, I’m so ashamed

Nevertheless, this song, and songs like it, alerted me to the fact that those more in the world than “words, words, words.” People want to believe, and their hopes can be fulfilled by the words of someone they trust, someone like the leggy Christina Aguilera. However, that’s the subject for another post.

She was also the producer of the second album of Christina’s two-disk set, Back to Basics. She co-wrote my favorite Christina song, Candyman:

Since then, she has gone on to work with many artists, including Jewel, Courtney Love, Gwen Stefani, Blaque, Sugababes, Lillix, Robbie Williams, Melissa Etheridge, Sierra Swan, Solange Knowles, Gavin Rossdale, Juliette and the Licks, Lisa Marie Presley, Fischerspooner, Unwritten Law, L.P., Kelly Osbourne, Vanessa Carlton, James Blunt, Cheap Trick, Ben Jelen, Enrique Iglesias and Giusy Ferreri. (Wikipedia)

Those are some fine credits.

Experiments

The credentials of Perry allows me to experiment with artists who I would otherwise have no interest in listening to, like Gwen Stephani. Linda wrote this song for her:

And I even found this little gem in the catalog of Kelly Osbourne, written by Linda:

One of my favorite themes, which I refer to to as the silence/speaking divide, is dealt with here:

One word breaks the code of silence,
Silence tells me all I need to know.
One Word,
One Word, tells me everything I need to know.

After breaking the “code of silence,” we are introduced to the “One Word.” Not a series of words, mind you; one word. And that one word is not just any word. It is a word driven from the world of science and scientific meaning “into madness.” Any words that matter deal with “madness,” in keeping with Linda’s aesthetic upbringing. That word tells her “everything I need to know.”

One word driven into madness,
Madness driven by the depths below.
One Word,
One Word, tells me everything I need to know

Really, I ask myself. All she needs to know comes from one word? Well, I tell myself. I’m not writing the song.

It turns out this one word is a lie.

One lie tells a thousand stories,
The greatest stories that were ever told.
One Lie,
One Lie, tells the greatest stories ever told.

Once again, I have to restrain myself from my initial response, which, as I’ve said many times on this blog before, tends to be overly rational and overly scientific. How can one word be a lie and contain “the greatest stories that were ever told?” I want more explanation from the songwriter. But, of course, I’m not in the position to dictate my point of view over others; nor do I want to be in such a position. It’s just a song.

Granted, I don’t agree with her point of view any more than I agree with Nina Hagen’s point of view as ends of my inquiry into the metaphysical point of view of my place in the universe. But I’m not necessarily interested in metaphysical ends when I listen to music. I’m much more interested in processes. So, in spite of my philosophical disagreements with her, Linda Perry’s work seems to me to be worth keeping track of. She’s a great producer and songwriter.

Categories: What I'm Listening to This Week
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