In the video below, it would seem that the music was written to accompany the animation, or vice versa. Actually, they were created years apart by different people for different reasons; and somehow, the two creations found each other. What this short film says to me is, All of us are both lost and found at the same time, all the time. The surprise comes when we realize just how much. So, I offer this as an encouragement to insist upon your lostness and to insist upon your foundness.
Due to the vagueries and caprices of youtube, this video, itself, has often been lost and then found again. If it is not available at the time you are reading this post, please check back again. In the meantime, the writing below from "Brother Void" (Andrew Boyd) is offered as a tonic during times of adversity.
Excerpted from The Book of Daily Afflictions by Andrew Boyd:
Finding Sorrow
Let my hidden weeping arise and blossom – RAINER MARIA RILKE
When you get depressed, it's comforting to remember that deep inside you is a well of pain. This pain can help you. It's a reservoir of self-knowledge and nourishment. When you welcome this pain, it can carry you out of depression and into sorrow. When depressed, you are merely numb and listless. But in sorrow, you feel the fine-grained texture of loss. Whereas depression diminishes your world, sorrow teaches you the true value of the things you mourn. Sorrow is the other side of joy– a dark, moist cradle of grief that slowly nourishes you, a solemn vigil that honors what you love. So the next time you are ensnared in darkness, cut through the gray armor of depression straight to the dark heart of sorrow.
In Britain’s underground train, the Tube, there are painted signs and a loudspeaker that intones “Mind the Gap” between the platform and the train. In the U.S., we see yellow warnings of “Caution.” I prefer the admonishment to mind something because it seems more focused as a directed mental state rather than an emotional one. “Mind” suggests a watchful awareness of something specific, whereas “caution” evokes a generalized heightening of anxiety. After 9/11, the terror alert status was always somewhere around orange on a spectrum of colors from green to red, yet no one knew exactly what that meant in terms of action, and what could a traveler actually do about that warning, anyway? Then began a lot of “exercising caution” that felt like a nervous treadmill in the chest. Awareness of the human condition and the threats to its welfare is the responsibility of all people, but the expression of the human heart is the purview of the artist. Sometimes artistic expressions can be cautionary about society's ills, and those expressions hold up various red flags to us. But the kind of art that allows us into a singular person’s underground–and back out again– can reassure us that all is not lost, even if it seems that way at the time.
Which brings me to Rod Stewart’s "Maggie May", curiously. Usually, I hear it as a cautionary tale– lifted from the book of Proverbs–of a young man who was led astray, ending up heartbroken and empty as a result. Now that I’m older, I hear an invitation to a enter a mindful state of who and what Maggie May is, without recrimination or paranoia to always be on guard.
The original rendition begins with the lull of a mandolin followed by two rousing thumps and a command of “Wake up, Maggie! I think I’ve got something to say to you.” By contrast, this later live Unplugged rendition calls us to listen more tenderly. So let’s wake up, too, however rudely or gently, and mind what he has to say. There is so much in this performance that is instructive about what happens between us and our creative muses, displaying harmony in actuality:
The lyrics to this version:
Wake up, Maggie, I think I got something to say to you
It's late September and I really should be back at my school
I know I keep you amused, but I feel I'm being used
Oh, Maggie, I couldn't have tried any more
You lured me away from my home
Just to save you from being alone
You stole my heart, but I love you anyway
The morning sun, when it's in your face really shows your age
But that don't worry me none, in my eyes, you're everything
I laughed at all of your jokes
My love you didn't need to coax
Oh, Maggie, I couldn't have tried any more
You lured me away from home
Just to save you from being alone
You stole my soul, but I love you anyway
All I needed was a friend to lend a guiding hand
But you turned into a lover, and mother, what a lover,
You wore me out
All you did was wreck my bed
And in the morning, kick me in the head
Oh, Maggie, I couldn't have tried any more
You made a first-class fool out of me
But I'm as blind as a fool can be
You stole my soul, but I love you anyway
I suppose I could collect my books and get on back to school
Or steal my daddy's cue and make a living out of playing pool
Or find myself a rock 'n' roll band
That needs a helping hand
Oh, Maggie, I couldn’t have tried any more
You lured me away from my home,
Just to save you from being alone
You stole my soul, and that’s what really hurts
Maggie, I wish I'd never seen your face
I'll get on home, Maggie, one of these days
Oh, Mag
by Martin Quittenton/Rod Stewart
Well, I don’t need to be coaxed, either. I’m here to learn, I’m dropping my fishing nets, and I’m all in. Firstly, I notice that he wants to sing without too much accompaniment or embellishment. He’s vocally naked, and this exposure is what every artist has to risk. At some point, the second guitar and other instruments join in for emphasis, but the musicality doesn’t seem to be the highest priority here. The baring of the soul and the bearing of the message are. There’s no time for mere navel-gazing and strumming when you’ve got the attention of this many people.
Interestingly, that message has changed a little bit from its earliest days. The original lyric is “It’s late September and I really should be back at school.” A more mature Rod Stewart adds in and lingers on the words, "my school" to which the audience curiously responds with approval. Perhaps this reminds us that we are always in some sort of school, some stage of learning, and staying away for too long for whatever reason, just makes it harder to rejoin, like a friend you haven’t seen in a while.
There is a great deal reflected about the neglect of self and natural growth in such a small number of words. The insertion of the word “my” is a resolve to go to wherever we have experienced the most important and meaningful expansion of our capacity to love and to put the best of ourselves into the world. “School” is just a place where we should be because we don’t know any better yet. Others who know better decide for us, and we’re thrown into it along with others. "My school" is the one we choose alongside the Should Be Places. Our continuing education is a blend of what others know and what we know, and we make it our own.
Illumination framed by a calcified window. "Pelvis IV" by Georgia O'Keefe 1944, oil on canvas
Maggie May is a distraction from all of that. She doesn’t have to be an older female lover; she is anything that calls upon us to amuse, busy and occupy ourselves or someone else until we’re spent. And yet, Maggie May has been an education for him, herself. He feels foolish, blind and robbed, but he loves her anyway, which is the startling moment of self-knowledge. But, Maggie May is not the muse— she is the a-muse, the opposite of the muse—the drain on his life force.
A few things happen with the A-muse. She seems like she’ll be a good thing, but her increasingly clinging demands bring our true needs into sharper focus. He needed a guiding hand, but she grabs his and keeps him as a toy. Admitting that he gave his all to please her, he realizes he is as lost as he was before he “saw her face”. She only took from his hands without filling them back, so now they are without purpose and his soul is bemused and bewildered. He’s trying to decide where to put the hands to good use— to hold books as a scholar, to hustle at pool, or to play in a band. In the story of Rod Stewart, he chose the last one, to his benefit and ours.
And so a funny thing happens in the education of Rod Stewart, apart from an Institute of Higher Learning. His empty-handed experience with a Maggie May becomes a self-sustaining song, a breakout hit, and then one of the most famous and beloved songs in Rock and Roll music history. Rolling Stone ranks it at 130 of the top 500 Songs of All Time. So, naturally, he still loves her. In this version he replaces old lines of "that's what really hurts" and "that's a pain I can do without" with "I love you, anyway". Yet he still admits once to feeling the hurt, because he is not a Rock god. He is a human being, and that’s who we connect with. Whether or not we like the song, there’s a person sharing a memory under all that hair.
As a human, and not a god, he is also still vulnerable to the Maggie May occupations and fantasies that lead nowhere, and he is precociously aware of that as a very young man: “I’ll get on home… one of these days.” Inside of this sigh of self-conscious resignation, he is simultaneously hopeful that he will discover where his true home is, that his muse will guide him, even if he doesn’t yet know when. Sometimes he sings: “I’ll get a ride home one of these days.” The same line is a statement of his need to mind his own powerlessness, and is at other times a statement of faith in deliverance.
If we want to see a muse in action, watch Rod Stewart as the inspiration to the lead guitarist, Ronnie Wood. They are like the Yin and Yang of punked-out hair, party-weathered faces and tight pants. The guitarist is taking all of his cues from his muse that is singing. See how he watches. There is focused attention, flexibility, and a temporary surrender to the leading of the musical spirit that is creating this moment. And so how could the muse not finally seal that moment with a gracious kiss, and recognize and lift up the artist for all to see? If someone wants to hide you behind them and keep you as a possession or commodity, or if an activity or occupation causes you to skip your school, they are an A-Muse, a Maggie May. Mind them, like a gap.
Magazine ad, 1926
How will all of this mindfulness play itself out? It’s impossible to know. No one can guarantee commercial success and acclaim. In the instance of this particular performance, the audience is present, but not necessary to the moment. The applause is an enthusiastic and energetic response, but is extraneous. This all could have happened away from the public in a closed session and would have been no less sacred. When this does happen, when we find our genuine muse and see her face, we couldn’t leave her if we tried.
