Funky Answers

And defeating the evil Nose d'Voidoffunk

“Bit if you look too long at the small rights, Jake - the ones that lie close at hand - it’s easy to lose sight of the big ones that stand farther off. Things are out of joint - going wrong and getting worse. We see it all around us, but the answers are still ahead.”

― Stephen King, “The Waste Lands”

Full disclosure: I have not read “The Waste Lands.” But now, I feel like I need to.

In fact, I have read very few of Stephen King’s novels. For many years, I did not read ANY novels. I turned my nose up at fiction, thought non-fiction was more interesting and “ABOUT” something. I was…a snob. I was also majored in History, so nonfiction works were everything.

But writing novels starts to rival the difficulty of writing great rock songs. All of the work is on YOU. You are no longer a reporter, simply relaying information as accurately as possible. With fiction, you are responsible for every single part of its creation, the original idea, its narrative, character development, and its (hopefully) satisfying denouement. You are responsible for posing all the questions AND providing all the answers. Poetry, on the other hand, often poses great questions but leaves it up to me (or you) to provide the answers. The amazing poets on Substack ask me the most mind-altering questions. Trust me, I am working on the answers.

I wrote about responsibilities last night. Writing a novel is a LOT of responsibility.

“Things are out of joint - going wrong and getting worse. We see it all around us, but the answers are still ahead.”

Things in my life have been crazy the last couple of years. They got better; they got worse; some were nebulous in nature; some things would break my heart, others took unexpected turns. I am a very firm believer by now of things happening for a reason or reasons. I am not always privy to these reasons, but I have a healthy agnosticism with elements of faith.

Half the time, I do not even know how one of these essays will end when I start a new one. I usually just start with a lyric or quote and run with it. Sometimes, more than one lyric or more than one song. Many straddle the line of “depressing” or “not happy,” which is okay by me. If what I write depresses you, I am sorry. But we write what we know, right?

“Purple haze all in my brain
Lately things, they don’t seem the same
Acting funny, but I don’t know why
‘Scuse me while I kiss the sky

Purple haze all around
Don’t know if I’m coming up or down
Am I happy or in misery?
Whatever it is, that girl put a spell on me

Help me! Help me!”

— The Jimi Hendrix Experience, “Purple Haze”

“Purple Haze” is a prime example of what I am writing about tonight. Besides being from my hometown (shout out to Seattle, Washington), Hendrix kept people guessing, which I admire. Common agreement this was “Purple Haze” was about psychedelia, primarily because it was released in 1967 by Jimi Hendrix, and “purple haze” was…easy to make that connection. Hendrix thought of it as a love song. Those are wildly different ideas on the surface, but if Jimi says it was a love song, so be it. He started with one idea and moved into a completely different conclusion about halfway through.

“Am I happy or in misery?” is a very deliberate lyric. It is musically expressing extreme ambivalence. THAT is a familiar question I ask myself, sometimes in the same sentence, sometimes multiple times the same day, and almost every night when I shut out the light.

What is your answer to that question?

I need help finding answers. Therapy is amazing, a life-saver, and I recommend it for anyone who has the slightest inkling of depression or despair. And it may very well provide some answers. Just do not count on them always being happy answers.

“I’m so hard to handle
I’m selfish and I’m sad
Now I’ve gone and lost the best baby
That I ever had
Oh, I wish I had a river I could skate away on

I wish I had a river so long
I would teach my feet to fly
Oh, I wish I had a river I could skate away on
I made my baby say goodbye”

— Joni Mitchell, “River”

When the answers are not happy…ouch, look out. I am not even a big Joni Mitchell fan, and this song always feels like a punch in the gut…that I probably deserve. Her narrator’s desperate wish for connection not only ruined her holidays (the song is nominally a Christmas song and, if you are not familiar with it, “Jingle Bells” is the basis of the backing piano) but she is stuck with self-recrimination and doubt and melancholy. An opportunity for the present and the future is dashed because she let it happen. She took full responsibility for blowing it, laid it out there and it still feels brutal. No wonder it was never released as a single.

Joni Mitchell asked that question above and answered “misery.” “River” is the most beautifully depressing song I can think of…outside of anything off “Nebraska” or “Darkness on the Edge of Town.” (naturally).

What else should you expect from the woman who wrote “Both Sides Now”?

“I’ve looked at love from both sides now
From give and take, and still somehow
It’s love’s illusions, I recall
I really don’t know love at all”

— Joni Mitchell, “Both Sides Now”

While I never adopted a “glass-is-half-full” mantra (and likely never will), I will leave open the possibility that not everything is going to hell. Stephen King urges us not to get to focused on the present because even if it sucks now, it is possible…just possible…things might get better. Happiness and misery can, in fact, co-exist…I’ve never tried it, but it might just work.

Flash light
(Flash light)
Day light
(Day light)
Spot light
(Spot light)
Red light
(Oh, ho, red light!)

Everybody’s got a little light under the sun

— Parliament, “Flash Light”

“Flash Light” is the final song on Parliament’s 1977 album “Funkentelechy vs. the Placebo Syndrome.” George Clinton, Bernie Worrell and Bootsy Collins wrote an entire album as a story of trying to defeat the evil Nose d’Voidoffunk, and they ended with:

“Everybody’s got a little light under the sun”

Which seems like the perfect answer for tonight.