Making A Big Deal Out Of It
1. Songs make a bigger deal out of things than need be…
A song takes a small snap shot of life and puts it under an elevated, idealized microscope. It highlights the emotion, adds grandiose metaphors, adds drama, stirs in the truth, and claims to be a story worth telling and hearing again and again. Is any moment worthy of that?
2. and yet not a big enough deal.
The greatest songs ever give us the best possible glimpse of the beauty of the snapshot. I’m not sure a song could ever over-state the beauty life shows us.
The audacity to write a song about anything is a bold claim of the content’s value. And yet maybe every moment is worth that and much more.
Beach Lesson
A few years ago at the beach we were watching a beautiful sunset. White sand, turquoise water and the sky going from blues to purples and oranges and pinks.
Just down the beach from us we saw young couple getting engaged. The guy got down on one knee, the girl cried and said yes, and a bunch of friends and family who were hiding nearby came out to celebrate and take a million pictures.
The perfect moment in the perfect place and time.
But my guess is the engagement was going to happen regardless of the weather. The engagement wasn’t going to get rescheduled due to rain or in hopes of even deeper purples and reds in the sky next time.
The engagement was the non-negotiable. Everything else had some bend to it.
Just A Thought
Just As Convenient
It’s just as convenient to buy from Nike as it is to buy from Adidas.
It’s just as convenient to watch I Love Lucy as it is Seinfeld.
And of course it’s just as convenient to listen to your music as it is The Beatles music.
When it’s all convenient it’s silly to try to make your thing more convenient.
As we market and sell our thing it’s important to make sure we’re trumpeting the aspects that will make a difference given the culture and markets around us.
»» And if you succeed marketing those aspects, will you like being known for that?
On The Way
The Smoky Mountains are a necessary part of driving from Nashville to Charlotte.
They’re not in the way. They’re on the way.
Similarly…
As you are en route to Charlotte, it doesn’t do any good to get mad at Knoxville for not being Charlotte.
Both metaphors hold up pretty well in whatever our journeys are.
»» But maybe the most important part of the metaphor is knowing you’re in Nashville and that Charlotte is your desired destination.