Greed is an Illness in The Music Industry
Taylor Swift Distastfully Burns American Pie
As I sit alone, separated from my sons by bad laws that do not protect women, and parents and life-long friends who are not helping me get back to my sons, I am just noticing online that a teenage girl has killed herself because of Instagram and cancel culture. I am thinking about music and my own frustrations with mean songs, mean girls, an angry LGBT community that pushed me out of San Francisco despite my insisting that I had an LGBT family member that I loved, the black community who are using anger and in your face, all the time “LOOK AT ME! Listen to me. Read about me. Hear me”… culture to move foreward and block others out who they assume are racist or not participating in BLM enough. It’s such a crappy time to be alive, really. *Everybody seems to hate someone online.* Despite trying to put my own, personal form of happy, Grover and Kermit the Frog love from the seventies out there as much as I possibly can, there is an oppressive feeling of deep, spiritual damage out there. Even if you are a saint and have tried your entire life to like everyone, from the beggar to the CEO, it feels daunting and impossible to enjoy Facebook and Twitter. Instagram can sometimes push you into a series of reels or images you don’t want to see that you didn’t ask for. Twitter does this too. Suddenly, the app is pushing things at you that you didn’t ask for, even if you are trying to just post your own images and see only the people in your own feed.
If I was a kid, I don’t think I’d be doing very well. Heck, I’m not even currently considered successful financially at the moment. However, at least I have the wisdom to tune out, turn off my phone, not take things so personally, or go ride my bike and play guitar if everything else in the world is terrible. Teenagers don’t always have this capacity; things hurt deeper and feel worse.
I am a designer and creative that had a twenty year career in the Bay Area, and currently can’t seem to get hired in my field, so I learned as much as I could about Salesforce, learned guitar and songwriting, but I’m still a creative designer and communicator. I was a creative mother of twins. I went to school for nursing and worked as a back office nursing assistant for a while. I’ve done a lot of things in my lifetime, but I know I need a creative role with flexibility and fun to be happiest.
So, as I ponder the joys of online hatred, I wonder what it is precisely that makes women in the music industry so darn nasty to each other and other artists? I can understand being baraged with hatred for your music for twenty years, even if you are a number one ranking artist. Not everyone is going to like you, even if you have a number one hit. It’s not because you have a number one hit that people dislike you, really. They either just don’t like your type of music, or they don’t like your style or behavior. They don’t feel you have illustrated true kindness in the music world. They find your behavior unsatisfying, mean, vulgar, racist or trite. Perhaps they have focused their intelligence on creative and symbollic, beautiful or political songwriting and don’t feel your popular romance music is even in the same category. Perhaps they also are too busy being a doctor, nurse, lawyer, teacher, bus driver, or other hard-working human to notice what’s going on in the world of number one songs.
Well, I am here, with my extra time on my hands, after having my sons stolen from me by my abuser (with no way to influence their behavior online or irl), surgeries that have kept me from running for the past couple years, and very close proximity to the music industry to confront this “mean girl artist” awareness. It’s shitty. It’s nasty and not fun. It’s sub-tweets in songs. It’s writing about things intentionally to piss people off. It’s using your songs to sub-tweet your anger at others and try to prove you can say anything you want and be as mean as you want and still get paid all the money and go on SNL and be mean there too. Why? Why do you want to be so mean all the time? Ok, Bob Dylan did it, but in a very disguised lyrical way and not necessarily directed at any one specific human.
“And I hope that you die
and your death will soon come
I’ll follow your casket
On a pale afternoon”- Bob Dylan, “Masters of War”
Dylan is referring to the makers of bombs, guns and war. Those who forced men into armies against their wishes for “the draft”, etc… War makers. Not quite the same as “mean girl’s songs” or behavior of top women artists with lots of money, acting cruelly towards others.
This has been a very bad year for Taylor Swift’s moral compass, as she rises to the top of the “Greedy Queen Bitch List”. As a mother of musician boys who have said horrible things to me this year and one has posted things I don’t agree with online, it’s very hard for me to write this kind of negative review. I love music. I love all kinds of music, from all different generations and genres. I don’t love ALL music, but I try to listen to it and give it a fair shot. If I have to critique something, I will maybe say what is positive about it and what I don’t like. One thing I am positive I don’t like is Taylor Swift’s behavior this year.
Her family owned a Christmas Tree Farm and yet she feels it’s funny to go on Saturday Night Live and embarass male interns in a “Three Lame Virgins” skit in which she is torturing the interns and basically bullying them for being apparent virgins. This to me was not funny at all. I felt sick watching this. Here we are in the time of “Be Kind” and Taylor has to go 100% in the opposite direction. Maybe she didn’t make up the skit, but she went along with it. How did she not see how cruel they made her look? Does Taylor need a kindness consultant? My guess is that someone has said this to her before, but it irked me so badly this year. With covid, and the trauma of lost parents, lost time in schools, the hell we’ve all been through the past couple years, I think it’s just too much to be mean right now, especially coming from someone with wealth and power, mocking others less fortunate.
Why do we love Joni Mitchell so much? Barbara Streisand? Lady Gaga? There are artists who defend diversity and work with many other types of musical artists but who are not snubbing other humans in the business or rest of the world.
A song Taylor wrote in 2012 about a breakup that has a scarf in it is now a short film and the most played “very long song”, surpassing the plays of Don McLean’s masterpiece, “American Pie”. Does this mean it’s a better song than “American Pie”? No. It just means that it has been streamed more times than his song with modern technology. Can Taylor not recognize that her song is not as important historically as McLean’s song, which celebrates it’s 50th year this year? Taylor sends McLean flowers when her song passes his for the most plays of a “very long song”, as if rubbing it in his face that her generation is the generation of fast wealth, streaming music, and intense “I’m going to show off every day” to get noticed, to prove you see me. See me! Hear me! “I’m the greatest women songwriter alive!…” Well, maybe the most streamed, but certainly not the one with songs more intelligent and historically significant than Don McLean’s American Pie. Rather than being humble about the reality that many people actually do not like her music and would prefer Don McLean’s song over hers, her actions seem cruel to me. Let your elders in this world have their masterpieces. Don’t make them go out of the world feeling like you upstaged them intentionally. Recognize creative genius in those older than you, and don’t make them feel bad for getting older.
I guess I feel ashamed sometimes when women do things I wouldn’t do because it makes me feel badly for my gender. Where are the Taylor Swifts when I need them to be writing a song about my sons’ father who abused me and helping me get the money I need for housing near my sons? There are so many women in difficult situations that need housing and help. If I had a lot of money, I would help women who are stuck in horrible financial situations and can’t see their kids. I’d do something to lift up others and not flaunt my apparent “win” in a song chart that really has no significant comparison.
If you have so much money, why not help others? Lift people up. It feels as if my sons’ father is the devil Scrooge who made millions of dollars, stole all my belongings, my sons and refused to help me or provide spousal support. He stalked me. He harrassed me. He kept all the money for himself. Where are the women artists who recognize greed and this lack of respect for others with less? When you are in the top 1% of the world’s wealth, your behavior is seen by the rest of the world as either generous, or uncaring and greedy. Being a philanthropic artist and giving back what you have made is such a beautiful thing to see. Being mean or greedy is not so fun for the rest of us to watch.
This year, I have noticed Lady Gaga’s “Be Kind” Born this Way Foundation supporting others. She performed with Tony Bennett for his last appearance as his health and ability to sing is changing. I have watched Metallica’s Black Album reimagined by other artists covering their songs with 100% of the proceeds going to non-profits of each of the singer’s choice. I have seen kindness on the Country Music Awards, with donations going to Music Teacher’s and those with disabilities. Emmy Lou Harris has “Bonnaparte’s Retreat” which rescues senior dogs and finds them new homes. I know Taylor works with many LGBT artists and helps her friends in the music business, but as a mom from a generation between McLean and Swift, I want to lean towards the kindness of Joan Baez, Mimi Farina, Willie Nelson and others in the country and folk music arenas who created legendary non-profits, like “Bread and Roses” in Marin County, and “Farm Aid”… They love their music just as much as they love helping and giving back to others. These are my favorite artists because they don’t shame or bully other people or intentionally, “try so hard to win the number one spots”. My favorite songs are often never number one on any chart, and it’s really awesome when a new or older artist surprisingly makes it to number one or even in the top ten.
I see a really beautiful path forward for the Taylor Swifts and Cardi B’s of the world when they open their hearts and wallets and start giving back to causes they care about. Start a Foundation for those less fortunate, like Beyoncé’s BeyGood. Let go of the meanness that we get from online bullying and rising above it by not doing that in your own life. Being in the top 1% and a musician is just like being a super hero; “with great power comes great responsibility”. Will you be Wonder Women, or Cruella de Ville?
I was angry today because I am alone (though I have my guitar, my bike and music, so never truly alone) this holiday and separated from my sons in California. They are my closest family and I have always wanted to have equal housing and money so I could have them in my life just as much as their father has them. That’s all I ever wanted when I left. Equal access to my sons. Equal pay. A fair amount of support to survive. Instead, I got this wild musical adventure that took me from contract work, learning guitar, dancing in San Francisco to homeless in my car, songwriting, foraging food in Maui, guitar shopping and visiting the National Museum of African American Music in Nashville and to Maine to visit all the places of my twenties, where I fell in love. Where I went to school. Where I first windsurfed. My first job at the grocery store.
“I’ve been so many places, in my life and time
I’ve sung a lot of songs, I’ve made some bad ryhmes,
I’ve acted out my love on stages, with 10,000 people watching,
but we’re alone now and I’m singing this song for you.- Leon Russell
Maybe I just wanted to tell Taylor that I appreciate her, but want her to be more kind and generous. There are a lot of women that change a ton when they have kids, but what if you never have kids? Does that make you always more voracious in your art and career? Maybe. I guess what I really wanted most in my life was to have balance between work, love/family, art and spirituality. Life can be really exhausting when you don’t have that balance. Anything can offset it… Health, loss of relationships, loss of jobs, covid, climate chaos, mean people online, ill-spirited singers who you want to be kinder. Cancel culture by people you don’t understand why they are doing it to you. Mean people suck, still holds true for me. I suppose if you are being mean, someone needs to tell you, and that’s what critics are for. I’m aware of mean-spirited acts towards me that are harming my life right now, and I want it to stop. That means that I need to pray for the world to become more balanced, more fair, kinder to all people, including women that were saints in their partnered lives, but got nothing back financially. I see you. I ache for you and I want it to be over too. No good mother deserves horrible treatment. I’ve empathized with the women separated from their children on the border in Mexico. I have no way to free my sons. I have no money and no housing in California. I have no way to see my own children, and it hurts. I’m not ok with it and I don’t want moms to suffer like I have. Men who make all the money need to share. It’s not right to treat mothers this way and turn them against their own sons, just as it’s not right to laugh at “three lame virgins” on SNL when you’re supposed to be Wonder Woman.
