Different Circles

“A sex song?” Jake asked. “Don’t you want to do something a little deeper than that?”

“Hey,” G said, “not everything has to be a fuckin’ political or philosophical masterpiece.”

“Yeah ... maybe,” Jake said, considering. “And it’s not like most of the people listening to our music have any idea what it’s actually about anyway.”

G looked over at him. “How’s that?” he asked.

“How’s what?” Jake asked.

“That bullshit you was just spouting. What do you mean that most of the people listening don’t know what we’re laying down?”

“It’s true,” Jake said. “I wish it wasn’t, but the fact is undeniable. Don’t you read your fan mail?”

“I do,” G said, “but most of it is from bitches that just want to fuck me. They don’t wax philosophical about the meaning of my lyrics.” He grinned. “They do send lots of Polaroid shots though. And now that we have the email up and running for the fan club, they send Jpegs too. You should see the collection I have.”

“Yeah,” Jake said, “I’m familiar with the concept.” He had his own collection of such shots stashed away in a corner of his office and saved on his hard-drive. “But the bitches who want to fuck are not the point. The point is that most people who listen to us on the radio and buy our CDs are getting into it because of the hook, and the music, and the guitar solos. The ones who actually understand the lyrics and the concept of the tunes are few and far between. I’d say somewhere in the vicinity of five percent or so—at least for the tunes that are not blindingly obvious.”

G was shaking his head. “I can’t accept five percent as a legitimate number,” he insisted. “I might buy fifty-fifty, but even that is stretching it.”

“It’s true,” Jake said. “I get letters and emails all the time from people who think they know what my music is about but are completely clueless. When someone actually does pick up what I’m laying down—which happens maybe once in every batch of correspondence—it stands out because it’s so rare. In fact, some bands, like Led Zeppelin or Dio for instance, don’t even try to make their lyrics meaningful. They just throw down some lines that sound cool, that rhyme, and that are backed with solid music and the fans eat it up.”

“Now you’re completely talking out of your ass,” G accused.

“Think so?” Jake said. “Tell me what Stairway to Heaven is about.”

“Uh ... well ... I’ve never actually...”

“You know the lyrics, right?” Jake asked. “Everyone knows the lyrics to Stairway. Run them down in your head right now and tell me what the song is about. Here, I’ll help.” He began to pick out the melody for Stairway on his guitar and then sing the lyrics in question. He got as far as the third stanza before G stopped him.

“All right,” the rapper said. “You made your point. Stairway ain’t got no decipherable meaning to it.”

“That’s right,” Jake said. “Fuckin’ Plant and Page don’t even know what the goddamn song is about. They just got high one day and threw down some cool sounding lyrics and it became the most popular rock song in history. And it’s not just Stairway. Kashmir? No one knows what the fuck they’re talking about there either, not even them. Basically, any Led Zeppelin song that is not about sex, Vikings, or hobbits is meaningless. And it’s not just Zeppelin either. You ever listen to Elton John? Great singer, great pianist, his music is beautifully composed and engineered, but what the fuck is he talking about in Daniel? In Levon? In Madman Across the Water? He ain’t talking about shit, that’s what he’s talking about.”

G pondered those songs Jake had just named off and concluded that he was correct about that as well. It was an interesting epiphany for him. “You don’t write shit like that, do you?” he asked.

“No,” Jake said. “Every one of the tunes that I’ve written and produced and recorded has meaning. Sometimes the meaning isn’t all that deep, but it’s always there, ready for someone to interpret.”

“You ever try to write something like that?” G asked.

“No,” Jake said. “That’s not what I’m about. I want my tunes to have meaning.”

“Do you think you could pull it off though?” G asked.

“Pull some lyrics out of my ass and lay them down? Of course I could pull it off, but why would I want to?”

“To prove your point,” G said. “As an experiment in the lack of the musical sophistication of the majority of the American population.”

“I don’t need to have that point proven to me,” Jake said.

“How about a wager then?” G asked.

“What do you mean?”

G grinned. “Are you working on your next CD yet?”

“I’ve been doing some composing at night,” he said. “Coming up with some basics. I’m at least six to eight months away from walking into the studio though.”

“Then you’ll have lots of time,” G said. “I’ll bet you that you cannot compose a completely meaningless and indecipherable tune lyrically that will not only receive saturation airplay but will chart above number five on the Billboard for at least a week.”