I’m acquiring a new skillset.  I can often see in someone’s eyes that they are unable to compromise their belief system or indoctrination.  The type who will not only get angry at you for disagreeing, but wish you cancer or death for it.  This is a growing trend in America, and it’s coming more from the hard left than the hard right.  Who, in the 70’s, 80’s & 90’s would have ever believed this possible?

I had people so angry at me for not getting tested or vaxed for Covid, that I lost relationships.  More than one hand.

Now that the vax has been proven ineffective and worse, no one is stepping up or standing up admitting anything.  They’ve simply moved on to another thing to hate 🙂

Know you’re in a cult when corporate America agrees with you.  The conspiracy crowd has no such groupthink.  The only thing we have in common is knowing we’re being lied to.

Sometimes the hardest thing about getting older are the war stories.  When I meet a young musician, they want to open things up, play with them, create something new, then get another toy that helps inspire them to do the same.  When I meet up with friends my age or older, they often want to talk about things that happened 30+ years ago.  It reminds me of guys I knew that would glorify how high they were in the 80’s, how much they drank, how many girls they slept with…  they’d always end it with ‘i’m lucky to be alive’ but it was a way to glorify the rings around the tree.  It’s not as boring as it is constant.

We’re also in the age of disclosure.  If we were magicians instead of musicians, there’d be no more magic shows or magic wands.  All the tricks are freely given away to anyone willing to subscribe.

This was unheard before the internet owned us all.  You think I could find out Bob Clearmountain or Chris Lord-Alge’s process, entire list of boxes, chain etc.?  Only if I were their 2nd engineer.  That’s literally the only way you could find out someone’s secrets… if you had to set them up.

Now with YouTube everyone is showing everything.  There’s a lot of fun in this of course.  I love finding out the secrets I always wondered about.  9 times out of 10 the answer is much simpler than I thought… but the mystery is gone too.  Not the worst thing.  No need to have all this mystery… not in professionalism or in fame for that matter.

It was just different… back in the day.  There see I just did it myself 🙂

Releasing a song in the digital world is a new foreign experience… but the fact is i’ve spent enough time in the futile world of developing artists.  Now i’ll invest in promoting my own music, whatever way it seems practical and appropriate.

Which brings me to promoting on YouTube.  We’ll see if it means anything tangible or if it’s just a course in unfulfilled promises and ‘thank you sir here’s your invoice’

I’m hopeful it’s like Spotify in that you’re promoted, even added to playlists in countries you invest in, and those impressions over time result in growing an audience.  I can’t honestly say that’s the case yet, but it’s certainly worth a few solid efforts.

Anyway the single is out, and the climb begins.  For what you say?  I have no idea… but I hope people like it.

So much fun with this one, from the recording and mixing to the single artwork and lyric video.  Thanks to Ethan for the thumbnail and Jesse for help with all sites!

See, here’s the thing about ABBA.  I loved them when all the others my age we laughing.  In 1979 in London, the NME and Melody Maker were setting the trend on what was in or out.  ABBA would have only been mentioned in either of these rags to be ridiculed.

Which brings me to one of the many things I admire so much about them.  They simply weren’t reading it!  Björn and Benny would go off to a remote cabin in Sweden and just write songs.  They were so oblivious, or mature you might say, to what was ‘hip’ that they just couldn’t be bothered.  They were trying to write hit songs.  Their legend has far surpassed that of The Jam, The Sex Pistols, U2 or anyone else those hipster magazines were frothing on about.  I knew it then and it remains true today-  very few of those trendy bands had any songs.

Another thing I truly admire about this band is how real they are when describing what they did and how they did it.  There’s no hyperbole.  No polished stories that hint a re-telling for the thousandth time.  Watch some of the documentaries out there about them.  You’ll be so pleasantly surprised.

To this day Agnetha has one of the most lovable, kind faces.  She has never tried to act younger than her age.  She’s grown older gracefully, and with nothing but class.

Yes, there’s a lot to be learned from ABBA.  They matter on all dynamics.  The music, the writing and production, the engineering of Michael B. Tretow.  The unwillingness to buy into the emperor’s new clothes of ‘lifestyle’ over plain old good songs.  Their elegance and aging with class.  Their pragmatism and lack of public drama.  Their undying success.

So, to ABBA.  They are in my top 5 of all time… and i’d say high in that top 5.