There was a time shortly after high school, where I grew dissatisfied with my singing. I'd been performing and singing for years, but it was heavy music, where I was often screaming, just letting everything go. I learned to live with constant sore throats.
But I didn't stay with heavy music forever. I found other music that I loved, and I found other types of songs and sounds leaping into my mind. I realized music was what I loved, the multiform shapes that sound could find. I loved music that didn't fit my "image" because I loved the minds that made it, and what it did to my own mind. I take all music on its own terms, to this day (which is why I avoid linking to music videos for songs, since they tend to market limiting identity and lifestyle "images" for what is only pure sound).
But as soon as I love some music, I want to play that music, and when I was younger I started discovering barriers in what I could do naturally, and they became opportunities for growth.
When I was introduced to Ben Folds Five, what immediately struck me was the total abandon of their vocals. No, actually, what first struck me was the skilled, expressive drumming of Darren Jessee. But beyond that bedrock truth of his essential drum creativity is the fact that the vocals for most Ben Folds Five songs are crazy. They were as hyperactive as I wanted to feel when I played any instrument; loose, confident, wild on whimsy.
But I started to realize I couldn't just let loose in my singing and hit as accurately as they could with seemingly no effort. One of the songs that drove this home for me was "Mess." It's not even one of their hyperactive songs, but the long, big singing notes of the chorus gave me problems. It was kind of the last straw.
I got pissed off.
And when I am pissed off that I can't do something, it becomes the castle to which I must lay siege. I spent hours and hours singing harder and harder to a range of songs, improving my accuracy, delivery, tone, all these performance details - just so I could properly sing along with this melancholy little epic with fitting mournful release.
It wasn't long before I was able to do what I wanted, and I still take deep pride in the evolution I was able to put myself through, self-motivated.
Well, it wasn't entirely self-motivated.
This song was my real motivation.
Musically, how can you argue that this isn't one of the best of all songs?
The tack piano sound sets it off, the part played like an old-time ballad, with expert speed. The drums and bass keep their own swift parts going with accomplished understatement. The pure minor chord progression and the dramatic interludes between the verse lines reinforce this as some kind of old-style morality epic.
The choruses are resplendent. Like I said, they inspired me to evolve. That's not common.
And what a haunting instrumental section right after that first chorus, an added grand piano, well-orchestrated strings, penitent vocal harmonies, expanded drumming - it all swells with such thoughtful gravitas.
There are twists and turns in the song, quiet moments, stirring rises, entire stops, resolute re-starts, intimacy, confession, and a sadness that refuses to become despair even facing what may be the immovable limits of knowledge, hope that those limits properly appreciated may actually constitute freedom, and sadness again that such freedom is itself met with social limits. It's a mess. A confusion. Fellini often spoke of a "beautiful confusion."
Here it is.
