EDM
Hey brother, hey sister...
“Disruption is good when a scene is half stuck” - Avicii
Sunday was a really, really hard day. The damn broke begging to answer what on earth was wrong with me for months. Then it got worse as the husband who I believe never hears a thing and didn’t even know what was going on in the house for the last two months, pulled me in close and held me.
It had been four years since I woke in my sleep choking on tears. He said, “you’re not gonna like this, but I have seen you frozen to find your way in the last few months of visits with family.” To which the tears raged so hard you’d think I needed a face transplant.
He said, “you’re there, but I can see you struggling to find your old self.”
“I thought I was my old self?” I can’t explain. I tried to tell mom but she only sees beauty.
I’ve been a child looking for my friend that moved away.
This is what we’ve prayed for. Stay focused on all the good. Go forward. Keeping writing your way out of this. God is good. Blah, blah, blah they say.
Thank you. yes. I smile.
When you’ve lost a part of yourself, can’t find it, nor explain it, yet feel the crushing weight of defining it, then what? The fine line that distinguishes you from the person you were and the person you have become without knowing who this new person is, is blurred. Tied to the past, oddly indifferent to the present, looking for a future and screaming for a simultaneous escape. The heart is alive with love and scar tissue. No one can make it go away with words. It’s just there like the swollen costochondral joint of the rib below my breast that swells like a pointy finger knuckle when I’m anxious. The blow from the 2015 ladder fall, which left me scarred and battered for months, also left it’s lingering reminders.
So mom went home. She was with us for two months. Brother came for three weeks. They drove off Sunday with brother’s sweetest brown rescue lab whose morning toy greetings were better than any Christmas present.
It’s been nonstop for two months and for those who know my story, it felt like zero to 200 mph. A few birthdays to celebrate over the last few years, a few bbq’s and very little bonding with the family that blew apart in 2020. The door swung open and suddenly everyone wanted to be in our life. A lot. I struggled to put the rope, that cut me loose, back together and I did it like the blessed person I know I am, all while guarding my heart.
I needed a shower. I needed my mom back. I needed space. I needed, I didn’t need the two huge boxes of European cookies mom got as gifts to take home with her. There they were left in her closet. Sob. I needed to apologize for not checking her room before they left. I needed to cleanup, do more laundry, pay attention to my dogs skin infections. I needed John. He worked more than full time and I barely remember his presence, except for Wordle in the evening. I love Wordle at 6pm like I love a cup of coffee in the morning at 6am. This is when I see him. I needed sleep, yet I listened to the snoring every single night from the exhaustion of the electrician musician that can do everything except Christmas shop. I needed to apologize for not having the best dinners or choosing the best words to yell say. I needed a bounty of patience and lots of cbd oil for my arthritis which for some reason was flaring.
When I finally sat down, no gas in my tank like a 64 year old marathoner crawling to the finish line, I turned on Netflix because that’s what you do when you’re delirious rather than go to bed.
The first thing I saw was a new documentary called Avicii - I’m Tim.
Tim Bergling was, at one point, an Electronic Dance Music sensation. The best in the world, and I knew nothing about him or EDM for that matter.
A Swedish DJ, remixer, and record producer. At age 16, he began posting his remixes on electronic music forums, which led to his first record deal. He rose to prominence in 2011 with his single "Levels ." His debut studio album, True (2013), blended electronic music with elements of multiple genres and received generally positive reviews. It peaked in the top 10 in more than 15 countries and topped international charts; the lead single, "Wake Me Up", topped most music markets in Europe and reached number four in the United States.
- source: Wiki
I felt the urge to watch it.
During the last few months we also celebrated our youngest son’s 30th birthday. There was much talk about his love of EDM. I tried to listen with one ear, as the house exploded many times with familiar voices I hadn’t heard concurrently in ages. Apparently, my husband told our son that EDM was basically soulless in a conversation they had on a walk. I didn’t know this until the next day.
Halfway through the documentary, my worn out, sound asleep husband woke to the name and sound of “Dan Tyminski.” John has uncanny bluegrass radar built into his DNA. He’s also in a bluegrass trio, and ironically, I’ve covered Dan Tyminski and The Soggy Bottom Boys. You might be familiar with I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow . Dan’s voice is dubbed in for George Clooney in the movie Oh Brother Where Art Thou. He’s also been the guitarist for Alison Kraus and Union Station since 1994.
Tim (Avicii) was a creative soul not content to sail an unbending landscape of repetitive thumping electronica. He was a passionate melody maker, tireless, true artist, who actually approached different artists, like Tyminski, to work with him. The list goes on, including Coldplay’s Chris Martin, who he wrote A Sky Full of Stars with, producing the electronica version which transcended Coldplay’s sound to a new generation of club-ready dance goers.
The more I watched the more I was impressed with the young man and his instrument. Something I hadn’t completely rejected, but was thankful to embrace in my understanding of younger generations raised on computers. I also cried knowing the depth of a disciplined artistic soul and wanted to save him from that dark hole so many creatives slip into.
The fissures of cracked open skin, internal cliffs making it difficult to climb upward.
When Dan Tyminski’s manager called to say Avicii wrote a song he might be interested in, Dan had never heard of Tim, and didn’t know anything about EDM. In short, Dan said he wasn’t sure if he was interested and curiously called his young daughter. “Have you heard of Avicii?” She answered he was the biggest thing in EDM. He told her about the offer and she responded: “Bull$hit!!”
We laughed out loud and felt the gap of indifference closing in. At the same time I felt the rush of photography coverage that was canceled, along with me, in 2020.
In 2013, the Ultra headline set should have been a great success. Avicii introduced a handful of songs from a forthcoming debut album, inviting live musicians and singers to perform music that fused soul, R&B, and country music into his synthetic spin world.
40 minutes into his set, Tim Bergling welcomed bluegrass star Dan Tyminski and his band, plus singer Aloe Blacc to the stage. The crowd was dumbfounded and went silent. Some booed. Critics panned it as “too advanced for dance,” and reports say Avicii later spent hours in his hotel room replaying the videos, wondering where things had gone wrong.
Three months later, “Wake Me Up” was officially released as the lead single for Avicii’s debut LP True, and by mid July, it had become the UK’s fastest-selling single of the year. It hit No. 1 in more than 20 countries.
I guess we were old, sleeping and ignoring an entire generation. Tears.
“Disruption is good when a scene is half stuck,” Avicii told Billboard upon the single’s release. “We wanted to bring 15 minutes of something fresh to break [Ultra] up. We knew people would be provoked.”
My scene was half stuck, I needed to clear a path and stay on it.
“The album True pushed the boundaries of what pop EDM could be, redefining a genre before the audience had even realized it was becoming stale, and clearing a path for further experimentation and sonic exploration for Bergling’s contemporaries and generations of producers to come.”
John was wide awake and likened Tim’s desire to create original EDM to the desires of Joni Mitchell and any artist, with a soul, told to tow the line and remain mainstream boring. I texted our youngest and told him Dad was wrong. EDM had soul. More than that, Tim had soul, I got it and John got me. We’ve got this. Together. Climbing upward. Going forward.
Hey brother
There's an endless road to rediscover
Hey sister
Know that water's sweet, but blood is thicker
Oh, if the sky comes falling down
For you
There's nothing in this world I wouldn't do
So wake me up when it's all over
When I'm wiser and I'm older
All this time I was finding myself,
and I didn't know I was lost..
< compilation of Avicii lyrics >
To you Avicii, Tim.
Sometimes we get lost. Sometimes forever in a sky full of stars.
Thank you for the beautiful disruption.
I still believe in Love.
You are missed.
Isaiah 54:17 was my Bible app verse for today.
I'm new to your writing, and thus your story, but I hear something in these words, and I just want to affirm your journey. As a fellow traveler. You are heard.
This is beautiful soul searching writing, Deborah. It’s deeply moving.