The Link Between Worker Bee & Sobriety

I've been involved in a number of discussions over the years in defense of music as a higher art form. To this day my argument remains grounded in music's ability to be deterritorialized by the listener. Literary critics Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari wrote about the deterritorialization of a major language when that language is used by a minority within a culture. The act of a minority using that major language instead of the author's native tongue ultimately subverts the major language. It's a process of empowering a minor cannon within a larger a majority that would seek to marginalize the significance of minority writing. While I am oversimplifying their argument, these brainy professors pick apart the works of Franz Kafka, who wrote in German despite being born a Czech Jew, in their fascinating book Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature. As it pertains to my discussion, the major language is the song as it is created by the musician and the "Kafka" within the culture of the song is each individual listener.

Music has the unique ability to be claimed, owned and reinterpreted in a manner that is truthful and legitimate by the audience, so much so that the song obtains a new territory that is at least equal in validity (if not more so) to the original idea presented by the musician. Everyone has an example of this if they think about their favorite songs for a moment; more often than not a song becomes tied in with a specific memory or feeling and thus takes on a new meaning for the listener.

I've been listening to Worker Bee's new record Tangler quite a bit since we played together last Friday night. I've also been doing a lot of sober living (day nine!). I've begun to realize that months from now when I listen to the Worker Bee record I will be reminded of the thoughts and feelings I've been experiencing during my month long trek into the wilderness of sobriety in the same way that when I listen to Blonde Redhead's Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons I am transported back into Heather's mom's Chrysler Seabring driving in the dead of winter through the country roads between Nashville and Heather's Grandmother's house in Nauvoo, Alabama. Or how when I hear Jimmy Eat World's album Clarity I think of the Glass House in Pamona and the way 2nd street looks so empty under street lights and how my college roommate had a dream that we were performing the song "On A Sunday" in front of a stadium full of people.

None of the authors of these songs is aware that their songs now mean something completely different to me than they meant to them and that ultimately as the listener the meaning and the memories tied to the song make the song greater. I'd even argue that a song as a work of art is incomplete until it is shared, until it is reterritorialized by the listener and made into something new and other. So in this grand tradition I offer you the track "Cold Rat" by Worker Bee to listen to and create your own meaning and memory.