Important Gigs?

I Don't Have Any.

When it comes to my music, I'm not consciously pushing, building or climbing anything. I don’t really have goals other than following my muse and meeting whatever comes next. So for me there are no “important” gigs anymore, just pleasurable or less pleasurable ones. My pleasure is based first on whether I liked my playing, secondly on whether anyone else did.

I'm not planning or strategizing or headed anywhere special. I practice, I make my sound, I keep showing up, and I see what happens. I've been doing it for many years and I'll keep on doing it as long as I can, regardless of whether the shows are large or small, bars or stages, packed or empty. It's not my career, it's my life. As they say in Hollywood action movies: It's what I do.

People who like what I do seem to have a hard time adjusting to or believing or getting where I'm coming from with my music. They seem to apply their own standards, usually linked to the way it was when they were coming of age musically.

I think my latest and most satisfying attitude towards music probably started as a defense mechanism that I grew into and then began to sincerely experience. With the world increasingly music-saturated, and me getting older and more and more musically "irrelevant", at least as far as the music business was concerned, and me getting sick of where that business was going anyway, it was pretty draining riding the roller coaster of good gigs and bad gigs, high hopes and disappointments, and the never ending dithering about whether and why I should even bother. It was a real relief to jettison all those concerns and just focus on what was the most pleasurable, which was the writing, recording and performing, the work itself. I just focused on that and not so much on how it was received or what I was getting back. Then I hit on the idea of going even further and giving my music away free on my site and seeing what freely came back, via my digital tip jar, good comments, youtube subscribers, etc.

What started as trying to find a way to improve the quality of my time, ended up freeing a lot of energy previously bound up in status hunger. Freeing up this energy allowed me to put it into my creative life. That life began to grow and become a greater and greater pleasure and finally I really didn't care so much about my status or success level, I just wanted to do what I enjoyed doing and see if anyone else liked it too. I stopped feeling entitled to anyone's attention and just played to play. Oddly enough, when I started doing this, I started getting more attention. But it's still a secondary concern. I honestly feel as though my musical "career" is over. And since I'm retired, I'm doing whatever the Hell I want. If I want to do 6 albums in one year that's what I do. I'm a true amateur, in the sense that I am guided much more by love than money.

I think there is a natural tendency to project one's own feelings and priorities on others. But people are not the same and do not experience life the same way. Some artists need a stage, some don't. Some are attached to fame and fortune, some are not. Some need to be worshipped, some do not. I think that generalities generally express more about the generalizer than about what is being generalized about.

My original statement here was not a concept or opinion or philosophy, about me or anyone else. What I wrote is just the way it is for me: I don't experience gigs as being "important" because I'm not building anything or climbing anything, I'm not "going anywhere". If I was, gigs would either help that climb or hinder that climb and would therefore be important or not. All gigs are of about the same importance for me. My goal is to make my sound and play well and see what comes back freely when I do that. I've lived over 54 years with precious little fame and fortune. If it was important to me, I would have quit or become pretty damn bitter by now, but neither has happened.

I really like living this way. I get to focus on my work. I don't have the feeling that I'm pushing or forcing anything. Naturally, some of what I get back is more pleasurable and some less so. But I spend much less time hoping and despairing than I used to, I think because I’m not pinning so much on the outcome of any particular show or opportunity. Sometimes I’m a bit more encouraged or discouraged by a particular show but I don’t linger on the ups or the downs very much. I go right back to work either way.

Annoying?

You Bet.

A friend of mine recently called Mark Zuckerberg “annoying”. He's more than annoying to me. I think he's a dick. Not content to be rich and powerful, he's always looking for more and more money, and more and more power. I think his underlying hostility cannot help but fuck with people. Following people's internet activity after they log off facebook? And not anonymously? Providing a useful and habit forming service and then, once people are "hooked", changing and manipulating the service so that the more people are invested in it, the more committed they are to going a long with the next change and the next and the next?

Facebook changes benefit facebook and only marginally you and me. People get used to or hooked on this site. They literally need it, and so become apologists for whatever facebook does, always downplaying facebook's dark side. But facebook is basically mining and selling data. Maybe it's just to advertisers...but maybe it's to the police, or the military, or insurance companies, or...? Would you honestly put it past them to not do any of these things?

Most services like facebook are simply too large to be for the greater good. Some sites are very cool. They provide a real service to people and the people behind the site make money, but not in the billions. In order to make something as big as facebook you HAVE to be in league with some pretty dark forces. Saints generally don't end up billionaires. I realize that this is true of many of the companies that run things on the net, but I do think diversification gives the individual a small measure of control and flexibility in the face of these fuckers. I don't recommend putting all of your social networking or socializing into one basket, especially one created by a dick who never stops looking for something to fuck with.

I don't hate fb by the way. And I don’t hate Zuckerberg. He’s obeying his nature and so am I. I just don't trust him or facebook and I'm finding it less useful by the day. It’s his toy and no one forced me to use and like it. He's free to do whatever he wants to with it. Just as I'm free to move on, which I will be doing at some point in the near future.

Meanwhile, I am spreading my internet presence between my website, my youtube channel, my Flickr page, my email list, and this blog. I’m also gradually replacing my facebook content with detours to these sites. Should anyone decide to start a non-profit open source social media network that is simple, useful and doesn’t change constantly, I’m ready to jump ship anytime.

Love Or Money?

Or Something In Between...

I would say the very blessed among us get to make a solid living doing what we love most and essentially "being ourselves".

Then there are those of us who make a marginal living doing what we love, keeping a roof over our heads, but always somewhat worried about money.

There are those who make a living at something related to what they love, where they make more money but are a step or two removed from their true passion, like a musician who teaches or manages a music store.

And then there are people with pleasant enough day jobs who enjoy but don't love their work, and who use their spare time to do what they love most.

And there are people who hate their jobs and still don't make enough money to relax and who don't even know what they love.

And those who hate their jobs but make a lot of money at them and so at least don't have to worry about finances.

And a million shades in between.

Being one of those people who've chosen to live a creative life, very close to my heart, but who barely makes a living, I can understand why people are willing to work at jobs they either don't love or even hate, in order to make enough money to live materially the way they want or need to. It's a rational choice that makes sense to me, especially as I get older, with no health insurance or major cushion to fall back on in an emergency.

I know some people would call it "selling out", meaning they've abandoned their creative potential for money, but I don't judge it that way. We all need to pay the bills. We all need to choose what we need versus what we want. We all need to choose how much of our time and energy are going to go into our work. And we need to choose what kind of work that will be. When I see someone in a job they don't seem to like much, but are making plenty of money at, about the worst I'll say is, “Boy the money's nice, but I wouldn't trade lives with them.”

I’ve made my choice and I’m too far down that road to turn back now.

Here are some of my "secrets" to living a creative life close to my heart, without a "day job":

1. Keep expenses down

2. See "needs" as "preferences"

3. Don't have kids (see 1.)

4. Establish more than one creative outlet that also produces income. I am a T'ai-Chi teacher, but I've also written a couple of books (self published), and I'm a singer/songwriter.

5. Don't have a car. (see 1.)

6. Did I mention keeping expenses down?

Peace Of Mind

Watercolor by Samarra Burnett

And What Works For Me.

Peace of mind does not exist in my world. In my experience, minds are not peaceful. I have experienced that it's possible for myself and others to become more peaceful of mind, I am relatively sure of that. (Pun intended.) But I've never experienced, nor have I felt that anyone else was experiencing, any kind of pure peace of mind.

Only two things have actually brought some measure of peace to my mind. One has been accepting the parts of me that are not peaceful, never have been, and probably never will be. And the other has been doing what feels most deeply right to me.

By admitting to myself that I was competitive, aggressive, lustful, angry, violent and warlike, I invited these parts of myself to be full fledged members of the family or parliament in my head. They didn't have to become outlaws and "demons" to be fought with, and ultimately defeated by. When accepted and allowed to have their say, these so-called “darker” parts of myself began to relax somewhat. I didn't fight them, I just tempered them. And they didn't fight me, they just made themselves known. The lack of fighting between me and my darker side resulted in, obviously, less fighting. And less fighting in my mind meant more peace in my mind.

I find this to be true again and again. I have more peace in my mind when I accept the war in my mind. Certainly more than I do when I try to be peaceful. Trying to be peaceful seems like a contradiction in terms to me, like being determined to relax, or trying to lift a chair I’m sitting in.

I call myself a Freestyle Taoist because rather than the 1200+ volumes that comprise the orthodox Taoist canon, I focus instead on 4 words: Flow more~Force less. This is the heart of my life, both as T'ai-Chi teacher and as a singer/songwriter. But how do I actually do this without fighting myself? I've spent over 25 years studying and learning how to "flow more~force less" in countless training exercises within the T'ai-Chi system. I've spent even longer working on reducing wasted effort as a singer, writer, and performer. And yet I still force things all the time.

What’s important to me in life is not so much what I hit as what I’m aiming for. And what I’m aiming for is what I call "the unforced life”, the life that I don't have to force myself to live, a life without excessive use of force, where each action is done with the just the right amount of energy needed to achieve its ends. I've studied this on a daily basis for decades and still, what progress I've made has been slow and steady, with many, many very small steps.

Each one of these steps involved letting go of some little skirmish going on inside myself, a skirmish that felt like a life and death struggle to whatever parts of me were fighting. One by one, each little battle would reach a place where surrender was the only option, and that battle would be over. My shoulder muscles would relax and sink. A martial technique would soften and become more effective. My hands would find the sound I wanted to make on my guitar. My voice would open a bit. I’d find the words I was looking for. And once again, a small measure of peace emerged.

I don't know any way to do this other than gradually, by accepting whatever is happening inside and outside of me. Not liking it necessarily, but accepting it, accepting that it's happening. Things are always changing and conflict seems an inevitable part human nature, but when I've accepted what's going on, in and around me, at least I’m not adding to the conflicts.

With less preoccupying conflict in my life, it’s easier to identify what feels most deeply right to me and easier to act on it. I've learned to trust this "most deeply right" feeling completely. I know it will lead me to something ultimately beneficial, either directly, or indirectly through painful lessons. As I've gotten better at listening to and identifying this inner "right" feeling, there have been less and less painful lessons, more flow and less force, more directly satisfying experiences of my self and the world around me, and yes, even a bit more peace of mind.

Four Kinds Of Horses

Which One Are You?

Here’s a quote from Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, “The Marrow of Zen” by Shunryu Suzuki.

“In our scriptures (Samyuktagama Sutra, volume 33), it is said that there are four kinds of horses: excellent ones, good ones, poor ones, and bad ones. The best horse will run slow and fast, right and left, at the driver’s will, before it sees the shadow of the whip; the second best will run as well as the first one does, just before the whip reaches its skin; the third one will run when it feels pain on its body; the fourth will run after the pain penetrates to the marrow of its bones. You can imagine how difficult it is for the fourth one to learn how to run!

When we hear this story, almost all of us want to be the best horse. If it is impossible to be the best one, we want to be the second best. This is, I think, the usual understanding of this story, and of Zen. You may think that when you sit in zazen you will find out whether you are one of the best horses or one of the worst ones. Here, however, there is a misunderstanding of Zen. If you think the aim of Zen practice is to train you to become one of the best horses, you will have a big problem. This is not the right understanding. If you practice Zen in the right way it does not matter whether you are the best horse or the worst one. When you consider the mercy of Buddha, how do you think Buddha will feel about the four kinds of horses? He will have more sympathy for the worst one than for the best one.

When you are determined to practice zazen with the great mind of Buddha, you will find the worst horse is the most valuable one. In your very imperfections you will find the basis for your firm, way-seeking mind. Those who can sit perfectly physically usually take more time to obtain the true way of Zen, the actual feeling of Zen, the marrow of Zen. But those who find great difficulties in practicing Zen will find more meaning in it. So I think that sometimes the best horse may be the worst horse, and the worst horse can be the best one.”

From the first time I read this book over 20 years ago, this is the one story I always remember. I think it's a great metaphor and way of thinking. Horses are a lot like our own bodies and we "ride" them from above similarly. They're smart but very kinesthetic, they're sensitive, capable, resistant to control, stubborn, clumsy, graceful, and most of all they have a similar mix of being both wild and civilized. I often tell my T’ai-Chi students to try treating their bodies during training as though they were horses. Will you get the best result from their horse/body by beating it? By bribing it? By fooling it? Or by treating it with an overall respect and a spirit of cooperation that might include, at times, all of the above? I'm sure this metaphor is sturdy and has figured in all kinds of teachings, otherwise it would have been edited out over time...I wonder with more and more people very rarely even seeing a horse if it will continue to be a living metaphor as time goes on...

With regard to lessons in general, I started out as the fourth horse...now I think I'm somewhere between a three and a two.

Bye Bye Facebook

It Was Fun While It Lasted...

What if you had a tool, like a hammer or a guitar that you used every day, but which started to change into a different, more frustratingly hard to use tool, randomly, frequently and unpredictably. That’s what facebook has become for me, and I’ve finally just become fed up with it. I’m not raging or freaking out here, just tired of watching something I really loved get worse and worse and worse…at least for my purposes.

So...

I’m going to be phasing out social media over the next few weeks. I deleted my fledgling google+ account and I’m going to be scaling way back on facebook. It’s not so much because of what’s it’s done to my life, or facebook’s privacy policies, or how much time I spend on it. It’s because of the endless changes and the way facebook institutes them. I know change is inevitable and I have plenty of it in my life. But to me facebook is not life. Facebook is a tool. And I don’t like tools that keep changing and require time and energy to keep up with their basic use. Sites like youtube and eBay have changed too, but always slowly and always in small and useful ways. Not so with facebook.

For instance several months back facebook instituted a change whereby instead of clicking on “Share” to post a comment on a post, all you had to do was click “enter”, which was supposed to make things easier. Well maybe it did for the largely illiterate two word comment posters, but for those of us who liked to post more thoughtful multi-paragraph comments, it was a huge pain in the butt. Every time you hit the enter key to separate paragraphs, the comment was instantly posted. You can get around this by hitting the shift and enter key together, in which case you get what you used to get by just hitting the enter key: a new paragraph.

But this is different from every site on the internet as well as Microsoft Word. So you have to pay extra attention, on facebook only, to not reflexively hit the enter key for a new paragraph. You can do so as usual with every other place you type. You can also hit the little “X” next to the posted comment within a few seconds and you’ll be back in edit mode. The trouble with this is that everyone on that thread will still get a notification that you’ve posted a comment, and an email if they’ve opted to receive emails when someone comments on a post they’re following. I’ve received many, many partial posts via email while people struggle with this most basic of functions. And all for what? To make posting a comment just a tiny, tiny bit easier. It’s been months and I still accidentally hit that enter key and post incomplete comments.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg, the “new facebook”, which no one requested and which “improves” something no one was complaining about, is yet another pile of useless changes and looks to me to be just awful.

If someone wants to create a facebook like site for people over 50 where all you can do is post comments, pictures and links and never changes. I’ll be the first to sign-up. Call it fartbook. I’m there.

But as it is now, I'm already moving my pictures to my new Flickr page and posting much less on facebook. I think I'm going to maintain a very low profile there. Basically, I'm going to strip my profile down to the essentials, participate in this martial arts group which I'm really enjoying, I'm going to create a few musical "events", I'll continue to accept friend requests and I'll occasionally post something along the lines of: "Hey friends, I don't use fb much anymore. If you're interested in me, check out my blog, website, Flicker page, or youtube channel. Or just send your email address to mail@geneburnett.com" And then I'll provide links to those.

This feels really good folks, very empowering. I’ve felt helpless in the face of one dumb, frustrating and top down change after another. I feel like I’m breaking up with an abusive lover whose redeeming qualities have been steadily diminishing.

I'm A Folk Artist

I'll Take What I Can Get.

As I see it, folk music has always existed outside the mainstream economies of the world, certainly outside the monied elites of history. Don't get me wrong, I love Mozart and The Beatles, but I'm not anything like them. While all those royal patrons were deciding which wigged genius to back, ordinary people were playing music in pubs and markets for whatever the people would toss their way, or were just playing for fun around camp fires and front porches.

That's the tradition I come from. Even though I was raised by academics in semi-suburbia, I was raised with folk music and in the folk music ethic. When I was young, I abandoned that ethic and tried to fit into the pop music world which was very different. It never felt right and no matter how hard I tried, I always felt terrible in that world.

Only in the last 5 years or so have I returned to my folk roots and have done what I would never even have considered doing when I was trying to be a pop star: playing anywhere that feels half way right for whatever pay is available, including just tips, and mostly letting people decide how much they want to pay for my music. I don't make nearly enough at music to do it for a living but I've never enjoyed making music more than I do these days and it's never felt more right.

I'm not "going anywhere" and I know it. I'm 54, I hate traveling, I only know a few chords, I'm incredibly limited musically and I'm kind of a head case lyrically. I know what I do has value, but I'm a doubles hitter not a home run hitter.

I'm grateful for whatever comes back when I play. Hell, I'm grateful for the chance to do it at all. I'll take what comes to me, but my expectations are very low. Most of the good stuff that's happened in the last couple of years has really surprised me. I certainly don't expect it to continue. Just before I got a gig opening for America at our local Britt Festival, which I thought was a major long-shot, I was telling my wife Samarra how grateful and happy I was just to be considered good enough to be in the running for an opening slot at Britt.

People who like or love what I do think I'm either being way too hard on myself, or suspect me of false modesty, but I have to tell you, I play hours and hours and hours of music to people who are barely listening at all. They're hearing me and sometimes tip well just because they like the vibe they're getting but they're not really understanding the song itself or what I'm trying to say. I've played much of last FIVE YEARS to pretty luke warm response overall, so it's hard to get too worked up over myself.

I didn't mind playing semi-background music for 2 hours in a coffeehouse for $20 and tips the morning after I played for 1500 people and made hundreds of dollars. I was happy to have the gig because that's really my bread and butter musically. That's what's mostly available for my kind of music around here and I'll take it. I consider myself a folk artist not a fine artist. I'm proud of what I am, but that's because I'm being true to my nature. I don't judge people who are different kinds of artists. My favorite band is Steely Dan, hardly what you'd call a "folk duo".

I don't consider playing for tips the same as playing for free. I'm happy to play almost anywhere, for free, for tips or for pay. I can't really relate to most of what's been happening to the industry lately. I am not in the pop music business and certainly not in the mainstream pop music industry. There are so many currents of money, marketing, history, politics, manipulation and God knows what else affecting that world. It makes my head spin.

I'm so so glad I'm not young and trying to make a living at pop music, much less trying to become a pop star. The young artists in my tradition are building fan bases by constantly traveling and playing wherever they can for whoever will listen. They are connecting directly to people on a daily basis, they are developing connections with people who feed and house them as they go too. They are living in cars and don't expect to graduate to limos any time soon. They're not courting the industry because the industry isn't interested in them or in art for art's sake. I can't imagine genuine folk music being as popular nationwide as it was briefly in the 1960's. So once again there isn't much money in it, which has been the case for the bulk of human history.

Simple music with a few chords for people who call themselves "folks", music that tells stories about people's lives is not the stuff of pop music star dreams, but it it the stuff of my dreams. I love just casting my net and seeing what comes back. Mostly it's not much but when I can connect to a few people who really listen and like what I'm doing...well that makes it all worthwhile.

For artists like me, the digital revolution is a Godsend. My music will always be a minority taste, but worldwide that minority is not insignificant. For a guy like me to record a video in the local cemetery, post it on youtube, have a guy in Holland that I've never met make a better video out of it that gets over 139,000 views is nothing short of a miracle. For most of my life, getting that many people to hear one of my songs was virtually impossible. My original video is up to 20,000+ views and that amazes me too. This revolution might well be hurting pop music artists and recording companies. It may well have negative effects on the development of popular music. I don't know. But I don't make popular music. I make folk music, so for me, as I say, it's been a Godsend. It's like I'm suddenly in a much larger living room or front porch.

Gear-less

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Sound Gear!

Here's a great video from one of my favorite youtube stars, "Danielle Ate The Sandwich". Please watch it on youtube and read her description of how she saved her own show from cancellation by performing outside a rained out venue. If you're used to playing without gear and playing well, you too can have shows like this. I love gear-less shows myself...both playing and listening to.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4w2mXKdrZDU&feature=channel_video_title

I was at The Oregon Country Fair a few years ago and it was pouring rain...the sound was out at this one stage...half the crowd gathered under the bit of shelter the stage afforded... the other half was in the rain...I wondered, "Who's this?"...I worked my way to wear I could see and hear...there was this young woman playing guitar and singing gearless, over not only the rain, the thunder, her own guitar, but two other musicians as well. That woman was Raina Rose and it was one of the best sets of live acoustic music I've ever heard. Here's one of her gear-less videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TP8bqFqgRU0

Later in that same rainy day my good friend Jim Page was playing on the same stage. No gear, just him. Again, crowd half in and half out of the rain. He then invited as many people as would fit on the stage itself to share what little dryness there was. Both on stage and off I could hear every word he sang. One time, ‎Jim was playing a show in Taiwan and when the promoters and the police began to fight over whether Jim could finish his set past the time when the sound level rules kicked in, he said, "Hey people. This is an acoustic instrument." and finished his set gear-less in front of the stage. Jim's been playing gearless at the Pike Place Market in Seattle for years so this was no big deal. Here's one of his gear-less videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yjbXsKDvaw

Just this past weekend a local fundraiser, Michelle McAfee and I were scheduled to play at 6. The sound system was not ready. We were on a tight schedule with lots of bands and a hard, end-of-the-night deadline. So we played gear-less in front of the stage and it went great. Here's one of my gear-less videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nAj5lxLbY4&feature=channel_video_title

All it takes is practice and some good technique. There are many performers who are lost without their gear, but the basic elements of music for thousands and thousands of years have been the human voice and acoustic instruments. I don't mind sound gear and in some venues it's a must, but I much prefer doing the old-fashioned way.

Time Out!

Balancing On And Off Line Time

The only computer in my life is here at home. No cell, no laptop. When I leave the house, I leave the virtual world behind. I very much like it this way.

I like to balance the cyber and physical worlds. We are adapted to live in the physical world and are just beginning to live in the virtual world. I think people who spend more time on-line and looking at screens, than off-line and out in the physical world, are headed for serious health trouble. Of course we're all headed for serious health trouble sooner or later and everybody's gotta do what they gotta do, but I feel much better when I take extended breaks from virtuality. I’ve recently installed a free computer app that lets me schedule regular breaks when I’m online. Currently I have it set to that every 10 minutes, my screen goes opaque for 30 seconds for a “Time Out”. I use this break to check my posture, maybe get up and stretch, and focus my eyes on something other than the screen. It’s also easy to just skip the break if I’m on a roll or in a hurry. I highly recommend it. (Sorry PC users, it's for Mac only. If anyone knows of a PC version that's similar, please let me know.)

“Virtual means almost but not…”

~A line from a song I wrote called “Virtual”.

If land lines become obsolete someday and I have to get a cell phone, I won’t get a smart phone and I won’t carry a phone with me unless I need it for emergency preparedness, or for some specific reason. I see people all the time who are never off-line, never 100 % focused on their physical surroundings, always with their minds on their cyber identity. They walk down the street looking at their phones, they ride their bikes looking at their phones, they drive looking at their phones. I don’t envy any of them. Not their lives, their bodies, or the look in their eyes. They might still be good people, but I don’t want that life.

I love having extended breaks from my on-line self and world. The more time I spend on-line the more time I need away from it. The way I have it set up now, as soon as I leave my house, I’m off-line and engaged with the physical world. I love being on line too and all the communication, information, and entertainment options it offers, but none of it engages my body in a total way as much as walking does, or riding my bike, or practicing T’ai-Chi, or singing, or teaching, or talking to a friend in person.

I like it best when the virtual world is a like a shadow of the physical world and not the other way around.

Adele

Please Sing "Fever".

I don’t know too much about Adele and I haven’t heard all of her music, but I just love her unforced delivery. Every song I’ve listened to so far has struck me as beautiful, unforced, emotional, simple, direct, truthful and authentic.

I love what she doesn’t do with a song. She obviously has the chops to go all “diva” on anything she sings, but unlike so many of today’s singers, she doesn’t over adorn or show off all her vocal pyrotechnics every chance she gets. This is because the most important thing to her is the SONG, not the singer. At least that’s how she seems to me. Her skills are submitted to the song, not the other way around. She seems to be looking for what the song needs, not what her ego needs. This is so refreshing to me. So many singers seem to see a song as simply a structure to lay vocal tricks and emotional gestures over. Almost all pop singing these days leaves me with this “false” feeling, like the only thing the singer wants from me is worship. Adele seems to have something in her heart that won’t sit still, that must be expressed or she will literally start to die inside. I feel like she’s sharing not just taking…

Here's a link to her singing "Make You Feel My Love" on Letterman.

And so, in this spirit I would like to send out a thought request to Adele to please cover the song, “Fever”. I know it’s been covered a million times but they’ve all been self-indulgent miscalculations in my opinion. I only like one version, the original version by Little Willie John.

So many singers that I hear doing “Fever” do not sound to me like they are singing with their own authentic voices. All their quirks and mannerisms, I've already heard ‘em elsewhere, and many, many times. Or they seem to think that the trick is to find a new quirk that no one else is doing, or they try to buy one with the latest technical vocal effect. But to me the key is to do less, not more. Drop the quirks and let your actual voice and feeling come out.

If you don't trust the song, why are you singing the song? You want to know how to sing a great song? Trust the song and just sing it. Only embellish when the emotion you feel for the song makes you do it. Most people are too afraid to sing “Fever” without tarting it up.

I love "Fever", at least as Little Willie John sings it. To me, it's just a simple, heartfelt, "You make me hot. I'm the one for you.", kinda tune. I don't think the song tries to be anything it's not and totally nails what it is does try to express. When I hear modern singers, usually women sing this song, it's like they're the strong one, the hero, and the star of the song. They kind of strut the thing. But this is not really what the song is about. To me this is a song about the power of the other person, not the singer. It's a song of feverish devotion, almost begging, not strutting. For this song to work for me, the singer has to sound like they're singing to someone they want and want bad. It usually sounds to me like they're singing it into a mirror.

So have at it Adele! I can’t think of another singer who could even approach Little Willie John’s version…