There is a song that I have been obsessed with recently. I first heard it quite a while ago, but I didn’t properly listen to it until last week, and I’ve needed to put it on multiple times a day since then.
It’s called The Ride by Amanda Palmer. Do you know it? It’s kind of a lullaby. There are lots of parts that I love, such as this:
I want you to think of me sitting and singing beside you / I wish we could meet all the people behind us in line / The climb to the crest is less frightening with someone to clutch you / But isn't it nice when we're all afraid at the same time?
I also love the part when you can hear her sucking the air in between her teeth before these lines:
The blur and the noise of the screaming can blind and distract you / But isn't it nice when we all can scream at the same time?
The thing I love most about this song is that I can really feel Amanda sitting and singing beside me. I experience her presence by listening to her music. And I think, oh thank god, there’s another person with me on this ride.
This is true of all of my favourite poets, artists, musicians. When I encounter the artifacts made by them, I have a sense of having them there with me in that moment, and I feel companioned (even clutched) by them. I don’t just see shapes, or hear sounds, I feel the presence of the creator.
I know that this is an incredibly ordinary every day thing, but isn’t it extraordinarily magical? It’s teleportation. Artists can reach through time and space to comfort (or blind and distract) people they don’t know and may never meet.
That is something that makes good artists so good: they are so practiced at revealing themselves — their experiences, their perceptions, their worldviews — that we can at times feel their presence even more strongly than someone who’s actually in the room with us.
It is one thing to feel known by an artist through their art; it’s another thing to be the artist who is known.
Here are some other lines from The Ride that I appreciate:
Everyone's trying to stay on the side where the water's just boiling more slowly / Frogs in a pot, well that's one thing I've got / At least some of the frogs in here know me
I don’t like the idea of frogs boiling in a pot. But if we are all gonna die (which inevitably we are), it is a great consolation to know and be known by at least some of the other frogs. Even just one.
And one thing I’ve learnt is that if you are an artist (and you are, gentle reader), it can really help to have other artists sitting beside you.
That’s why I write to you. It’s also why I created ‘Mischief Makers’, which is a group programme for artists like you to get the support you need to actually make your art. We start next week. Are you coming?
In his book Impro, Kieth Johnstone writes about how when people are doing improvised theatre, they tend to drop down through three layers of inhibition in a fairly predicatable order. First, they reveal ‘gross’ stuff and start making fart jokes and using toilet humor. Second, the sexual innuendo comes out. Finally, people start to reveal their loneliness.
It really helps me to remember this. Loneliness is not personal.
In this fragmented society, we are fed so many proxies for connection like social media. Genuine connection is precious and rare. The truth is, even if we live exteremely loud and full lives, most of us are lonely. Some people among us are desperately so. This is not something we should have to hide.
I want to live in a world where, when someone feels lonely, they know that it is safe enough to reach out and connect.
Let’s be alone together.
With love,
Rata
God I had forgotten this song. I listened to it on repeat for most of 2020.
"Some are too scared to let go of their children,
And some are too scared now to have them"