Casting Off

And so today I have embarked on a short tour of northern Europe, for pleasure and pain, of a purely individual nature of course, as that is how I was bred. I break into Hodgkinson's 'How To Be Idle' in the Eurostar departure lounge, and that has instantly set me in a jovial mood. Less toil, more contemplation, less material desire, a more recumbent outlook...all make for a wiser individual.

I couldn't agree more with the sentiment. However, there is one issue I fail to reconcile completely, and that is the aspiration to create profound, strikingly original, and durable popular music. I've always strived towards such a goal, and have reached nowhere close to where I'd like to be. Why should I lay in bed idling when there is work of a musical type to be done? That has always been the question gnawing at the back of my mind, lashing me with criticism, like an old Victorian Beadle.

Certainly all evidence of late has pointed in favour of idleness, when it comes to satisfying desires, though unfortunately in the least important areas of my life. Doors remain closed if you continue to push them, and yet fling open the second you turn your head, allowing you to walk backwards blindly through them.

Is it right to "tut" at The Blue Nile for releasing about 6 short albums in the space of 30 years? To scoff at their encore at a rare live performance, being not only their biggest hit, but also the last song they played before the encore! Is it right to expect, or worse, demand, of creative types that their output be frequent, consistent, and of staggering quality?

Of course the answer to that is that I'm being unfair to myself and to those I respect as artists. Let them and I do as we pleased, be buffeted by life's heady stimuli, and try not to regiment the unruly.