on music...

...and being an artist. But in the place of my own rant here, I'm gonna leave it to some of the people I admire most on Earth to put into words what I can't yet get past a deep emotional state.

I found this Melissa Etheridge quote a while back; I can't remember where, but it really spoke to me and to where I feel music or any art should be coming from:
"And this sort of whole dream of success and this dream of “I’ve got to have a hit song”, “I’ve got to do this” – it wasn’t mine – I don’t wish to dream that anymore. I wish to create - I believe that there’s a world out there, who wants to hear music like this, who wants to put music on to be fed, to be nourished, to be held up and enlightened and excitened. And I believe that artists do that for people, and that I can do that for people."

A couple of years back, KT Tunstall (an artist I have a great deal of respect and affection for) recorded a beautiful acoustic album over a few days around Christmas on the Isle Of Skye, and during a little clip from the adjacent DVD, she says something which I had to rewind and listen to twice or three times because of how much it was my exact way of thinking. It really stuck, to the extent that I paraphrased it as the title of my music blog, "Chasing Songs":
"My experience of writing music is that I don't really have a choice, it just..I kind of follow it. I'm sort of chasing songs, and I catch up with them."

Alanis Morissette is, as far as I'm concerned, one of the most talented and characteristically beautiful artists on the planet right now or for a long time. Her generosity of wisdom and of her gift, her peaceful spirituality, and her humble earthliness and warmth all make her, for me, a truly phenomenal artist. These words speak so directly to me, I can't imagine explaining the basis on which my mind, ambition, & heart work better than she has:
"I live to heal ruptures and bridge the human and the divine aspects of life, and I hope that by sharing my own experiences through speaking, writing and art, I can support people in their personal journeys, wherever they may be at," she explains. "The initial writing is for me, and the sharing of it is my offering to others to make these songs and writings their own. For people to derive comfort, inspiration, validation or self-definition in accordance to what I write or how I live...this is my service."