Writing New Songs!

As a songwriter, I am always working on something. After completing the songs for "birth, love, hate, death" I started considering what I should write about for the next CD. Typically I like to have a focus or theme for my collection of tunes. For example, our first CD, "My Name is Thomas..." was a rock opera totally about faith and reason, meaning and purpose. Our second CD, "mostly True Stories" was a collection of songs about dogma, religion and ideology. Our next CD, "Out of Many, One" was more political in nature. These were the things that were on my mind when I wrote those songs and albums. Our upcoming release, "birth, love, hate, death" is another rock opera and this time the focus is love. Yes, it took me 4 albums to get the subject most bands start with and never leave! One reason I waited that long was because, in many ways, love is a far more complex a subject than, faith, reason, politics, religion and ideology; I was not previously ready or qualified to write an album dedicated to love. I may still not be ready or qualified, but I could no longer put it off when I came to the key understanding that love is more than a feeling - it's a behavior. Anyone can claim to "feel" love for another and then behave miserably. This was a key understanding and led me to write a story where the characters clearly come to understand that if they love someone they must sacrifice if necessary for that someone; that is what they must do. It's what you do for love that matters, and what you do better be the right thing, not the selfish thing, not the controlling thing, not the jealous thing and not the vengeful thing. THE RIGHT THING, the thing that is good for the person you love even if it is not thing you want selfishly. No one owes you love after all. My favorite lyrics always express doubt or some tragic sentiment; in this album the lines that are central (to me) are "I love you so much, I'd risk losing you; I can't do nothing except what's right by you..." (From "Better Man") Also, in "Honestly," the character declares "I don't know what love is" and "I don't know what I'm doing." Exactly. This is my attempt at telling the truth, the best that I know it. I will be writing more about the songs I've written in the past but I did want to mention that the next CD will be different, though related; the focus will be family, as if I know anything useful on the subject.

The Nature of Hate

Exactly why did a gunman (who shall not be named so that others will not be inspired by his furthered notoriety) open fire on a temple of worshipping Sikhs this weekend in Wisconsin, killing at least 7 persons and wounding many?

Indeed this is the question of the day and understandable since the answer may be of assistance in preventing future similar occurrences.

Some will explain it thusly: the ignorant killer believed his victims were Muslims, and he hated Muslims since Muslims planned and executed the 9-11 attacks on America.

This, of course, explains almost nothing. If I remember correctly, Germany and the Nazis perpetrated WWII and were killers of Americans. It couldn't be that this killer simply hated the perceived enemies of America or killers of Americans - he liked some and hated others. He was allegedly a neo-Nazi himself.

So exactly what is going on? He was most likely not "insane" in any standard medical sense - he was never diagnosed as such as far as is known right now. You could say he was a "hater," however, which you could then argue is simply the other side of the coin from being a "lover." Is being a "lover" insane? No, it isn't.

Perhaps being a vile racist is simply a biological imperative, at least in part. Perhaps some people are born caring deeply about their race (or hair color or the nation of their birth or their weight or the size of their muscles or the orderliness of the world around them, etc.) and cannot control their impulses to pursue these deep feelings. If they care deeply about their weight, perhaps they become anorexic. If they care deeply about order, perhaps they become obsessive compulsives. If they care deeply about race, perhaps they become racist neo-Nazis.

Much time has been spent for decades or even centuries explaining why some persons are shy, extroverted, heterosexual, promiscuous, gay, left-handed or any number of traits. Now it is believed that we were mostly “born this way” or at least have biological underpinnings for our traits. Perhaps it is time to expand this argument even further to explain at least either in part or at least some of the time why some persons gravitate towards certain ideologies and/or behaviors that were always believed to be the result of bad upbringing or environment.

Perhaps racist neo-Nazis are sometimes born, not made, at least in part. Perhaps this explanation is why human behavior – all human behavior including yours and mine, seems so often unexplainable; we are simply unable to fight the character traits that our biology imposes on us.  It is truly not easy to be "free."  It is truly not easy to live a life guided by reason.

So how would this explanation help in preventing future massacres? If we accept the probable fact that our behaviors are deeply influenced, if not dictated, by our biological makeup, them perhaps we could humbly begin to discuss our limitations and frailties and how we can create a saner society. Perhaps at that point, a sane discussion of gun control can begin.

But probably not. Some people just love their guns.

Why?

See the above.