It’s 3:18 am on Saturday night, and I should be asleep. I’m planning to visit my father tomorrow, and I want to be rested. But instead of sleeping I’m listening to “Soldier” by Eminem, blasting through my Google Home. The song is from 2002, and it features a young 29-year old Eminem. It’s not my all-time favorite of his, but it’s pretty damn dope. Em comes on so strong on this track, just verbally unloading on his critics and enemies and letting them know what the fuck he’ll do to them if they fuck with him.
It’s pure badass, delivered in that nasal monotone that he’s so famous for. The beat is hypnotic, like a metronome, and it really pumps you up. You imagine yourself as an actual solder, a warrior, a killer, a living breathing tiger. No one can mess with you.
Eventually the song ends, and I check my email, and I see that I have to pay a cable bill that’s higher than I’d expected, and I start to feel less and less like a soldier.
But then, just as I’m starting to get too low, I say “Hey Google, play Hall of Fame,” and boom, the epic motivational ballad by The Script comes on, and I’m jamming again! This song really rocks. I mean it’s a little cheesy, and you could definitely picture it on a Disney special or something, but who cares, because it bangs. I imagine myself in the Hall of Fame, as a champion, as a President, as an astronaut, as a billionaire, on a yacht with a harem, on an English country estate, and it’s all just so… great, is what it is. I mean this song makes you feel like you really can do anything. So good job to The Script.
Eventually this song ends too, and the next song that comes on is You Should Be Happy by the Goo Goo Dolls. It’s a decent song, but it’s a little melancholy or whiny, kind of like they are, and it’s just not doing it for me. I want to feel good, I want to be motivated, I want to reach the freaking stars.
“Hey Google, play Superstar by Lupe Fiasco featuring Matthew Santos,” I say.
It starts with a soft slow beat, and then boom!
If you are what you say you are, a superstar
Then have no fear, the camera’s here
And the microphones
And they wanna know, oh, oh, oh, yeah
If you are what you say you are, a superstar
Then have no fear, the crowd is here
And the lights are on
And they want a show, oh oh oh, yeah
Wow! I mean that is a powerful song. Yes, it’s catchy, and it sounds a little like a football coach trying to rally his college team. But it really does hit home. Because to be successful, and I mean really successful, not just having a good life, but making it to the stratosphere, then you really do have to be fearless. It doesn’t guarantee that you’ll make it, but it’s a prerequisite. Fear will keep you down when you’re trying to achieve great heights.
And I think about that often with my own writing career. I’m writing a blog, and running a media start-up, and I’m also working on a memoir that I really believe in. But I have moments of doubt, plenty of them, about whether I’ll actually get to where I want to go. That’s why songs like Superstar, and like Hall of Fame, and even Soldier, are so important to people who are striving for something. They just make you feel like anything is possible. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. But when you listen to these tracks, you become a believer.
And that’s what good music can do for you. Move you. Motivate you. Make you feel something new. I thank my Google Home for providing the soundtrack, and when the song ends, I let the silence linger. I’m done with music for now, and I’ve said everything I want to say in this post.
Now it’s time to just kick back and chill.
Peace out.
