The 100 Mile Artist

Lately I've been thinking a lot about the 100-Mile Diet: eating locally to make a positive change for the planet. It's an important idea. I'm really excited about reducing the amount of time and money I spend in big chain grocery stores, and walking instead to a farmer's market where I can buy locally grown food.

It got me thinking: how can songwriters apply the principles of "think globally, eat locally" to our music life? Is there value in being a 100-Mile Artist and writing a 100-Mile Song?

I think there is, even though we live in the Internet Age. Our music is now available at the touch of a button, as conveniently as our food and more cheaply than ever before. We consume music like we consume food and other products and entertainment: voraciously, often without any personal connection to how or where it's made.

As songwriters who want to be successful by our culture's standards, we tend to think that our music has to travel far in order to matter. We need to tour widely, or at least be heard beyond our local communities, via radio or the Net. We tend to believe (sometimes it's an unconscious thing) that a non-touring local musician, especially one who hasn't recorded his or her work, is less important than one whose product is shipped a greater distance.

But if we actually start living as environmental leaders recommend, getting more of our food closer to home, and choosing to buy and consume less, we might also start to value local artists in new ways. Local songwriters might feel more empowered to write songs grown organically in a real time and place...and we might not feel badly anymore if those songs (or if we as individuals) don't travel so much.

This re-framing might encourage songwriters to respond in a more particular, specific way about what's going on in their neighbourhoods, and to consciously sing the songs for the people there. The aim of writing a great song would be not to have it recorded by a big Nashville star, but to help actual people, right here and now. That kind of song, like that kind of great-tasting organic food, is nourishing to the soul. If songs are like food, maybe we can grow our own.

Of course, for anyone to buy the song (locally or otherwise), it had better be GOOD! Nobody, anywhere, wants a song that has no melody or whose lyrics are meaningless. Nobody will enjoy a tasteless or bland song that's supposed to be good for you just because it's local. That's why it's essential that those of us who are 100-Mile Songwriters create truly high-quality songs: songs that are on par with the widely-distributed "hits" of our times. There's no reason the next "Imagine" (or "The Rose" or "Blowing in the Wind" or "Heart of Gold", or...) couldn't be written in your town. It's just that in our commercially-driven culture, it's unlikely to be recognized. It's time we got better at that recognition process.

First of all, we can start appreciating the ways that excellent locally-grown entertainment enriches us. We can take pride in it, and be appreciative and grateful for it, without immediately thinking it should be exported. Instead of hearing a great song and saying "Wow, you should get Celebrity So-and-So to sing that" or "you should get it promoted to radio" or "get it used in a movie", we could learn to say, "Your song helped me get through my day" or "I always feel good when I hear you play" or simply, "thank you". That's enough. That, and a fair price to hear that musician perform, and a fair amount to purchase his or her recording--which was produced on a sustainable budget.

[As I write this, the rest of my family is hungrily devouring the MMVA's...the Much Music Video Awards...which features many celebrity artists who are the equivalent of the Oreo cookies in our cupboard. I find I often crave them, too. We are products of our culture. But as the priorities of our culture change, in response to urgent environmental and social needs, local artists could become valuable sources of direction, hope and wisdom. May we grow the best food we can.]