Although I often say I know why I write songs, and claim to remember why I chose to be an artist, sometimes I get lost. I get thrown off into the ditch of fear and insecurity and question the value of the undertaking. Climbing out the ditch, I begin to create again, to follow the light up ahead that says "move forward".
In order to stay on the road, I need encouragement from others, as well as basic things like food and sleep. I also need great art made by other people. Today I am especially grateful for a song and video called JCB, which I invite you to enjoy.
Like many artists without mass audiences, I sometimes complain about "big money music" and the commercial-scale distribution that comes to some creators and not to others. I've said, at times, that everyone should just create in their own backyards so that everyone could be appreciated equally.
If that were the case, we wouldn't all get the chance to be united by art. The world's a big, divided place. If a few beautiful things can be seen and understood by many, we might be able to work together to heal the world. A big distribution machine can be a powerful vehicle for transformation.
Just like a giant yellow digger.
Okay, have you watched it yet? If not, watch it now. Now let me tell you why I think it's great, and why I hope the songwriter Luke Concannon and his partner John in the duo Nizlopi succeed beyond their wildest dreams.
The song is told from the perspective of a five year-old boy riding with his father who drives a big construction vehicle. As they drive, they "hold up the bypass", irritating other drivers who want to go faster on the highway. The boy is proud of his father, glad he's not in school, and all fired up in his imagination, inspired to tranform into huge dinosaurs and robot toys. The simple, acoustic song is illustrated with in childlike line-drawings by animator Laith Bahrani.
The poetry is full of British-isms that most North Americans wouldn't know: JCB, bypass, "having a top laugh", etc. Doesn't matter. Few listeners will have ridden in a digger. Doesn't matter. It's a "children's song" (nope, it isn't, and doesn't matter).
(It's also getting really really popular, and therefore seeming suddenly commercial, and even being offered as a--shudder--ringtone. Doesn't matter.)
The reason any of us write, and the reason we are drawn to great art, is because great art describes humanity accurately and therefore reflects its beauty. When someone, anyone, illuminates their own little corner of the world, we are all celebrated and affirmed. We watch it over and over, or listen to it, or come back to the painting, because it makes us feel well and whole. We look to the art as we look to a lover's eyes: eyes that see us and know us and love us as we are.
JCB captures the interplay of strength and vulnerability that makes up the human journey, which is joyfully evident (in a dreamlike way) in childhood. It's also, of course, about the love between parent and child, the power of the imagination, and the vehicles that move us. The biggest vehicle of them all--the one that moves young Luke the artist--is Love.
Love is slow and sure and will not be moved by irritated, small people in little cars.
Love moves in a straight line, to a good place.
The child in the story knows this. We all do.
And that is why JCB will be the Number 1 song in the UK this Christmas.
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