Tag Archives: Bruce Springsteen

January 16, 2014 · 11:10 am

The Life In Your Time

I know it’s not TunesDay but today’s screen has a bit of a musical bent.  As Robert Hunter wrote: “Once in a while you get shown the light/In the strangest of places if you look at it right.”  That’s what happened to me the other night and I thought it would provide some food for thought today.

English: King of the Castle Living life on the...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My enduring affection for The Boss is no secret to any of you who read this mess regularly.  He was on the Jimmy Fallon show and at the very end of his interview he said something that resonated:

It’s not the time in your life, it’s the life in your time.

Coming from a musician, that can mean a lot.  After all, Janis, Jimi, Kurt, and too many others put a LOT of life into their brief time and one wonders how much more great music they would have created had they not done so.  As it turns out, Bruce‘s quote wasn’t quite original.  In fact, a similar saying has been attributed to everyone from Abraham Lincoln to Adlai Stevenson:

“However else you live your life, live it freely. It is not the years in your life that count, it is the life in your years.”

That was to a group of students in 1952 and he used it repeatedly thereafter.  With whom the saying originated is unimportant.  What is says is.  Stop and think about the last time you put down the smartphone, turned off the computer and had a meaningful conversation about something other than work.  Maybe you love and feel passionately about your work and that’s great but perhaps that passion should be spread out a little to give you a break?

We’ve all had friends and others we’ve known die young (and as I get older “young” is an evolving concept).  I doubt any of them wanted another day at work or to play a video game or to post silly photos to the web.  I suspect they’d all want the time back they wasted worrying about things that didn’t matter or holding grudges or being afraid.  We all know people who live their business lives that way and it may extend beyond business.  Too bad.

None of this is news, I know.  We’ve all been told to come up for air, to live in the moment, and to participate in our lives instead of being a spectator.  As with most things in life and in business, the challenge isn’t to identify the things we ought to do; it’s to do them.  Do you agree?

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November 12, 2013 · 11:18 am

Tell Me A Story

This TunesDay, I’m not really going to focus on any one song but on a number of them that make a great business point. If I were to ask you about “The River” (Bruce), “Cats In The Cradle” (Harry Chapin), “The Edmund Fitzgerald” (Gordon Lightfoot) or “Tangled Up In Blue” (Dylan), assuming you were familiar with them, you’d answer with two points. First, don’t I know any music from this century (I do!) and second, each of those songs tells a great story.  The list could go on and on and I’m sure you can add 5 or 6 of your favorite musical stories to the list.

The best of this genre actually give the listener a double benefit.  First, great music.  It may be an unexpected chord twist or an unusual arrangement but they’re out of the ordinary and immediately recognizable.  Second, the story.  Imagine if the obsessed fan in Eminem‘s “Stan” was the fan in the movie “Misery”.  The latter took an hour and a half to say what Slim does in 6 minutes yet the story is just as compelling.

That’s what we need to do as business people.  We need to tell stories that compel people to listen and do so in such a way that they leave us singing them again in their heads.  Listen to Dylan:

I’ve taken the most stripped-down version of this I could find and yet the love song sung by a troubled man is clear.  That’s how our messages need to stand out.  Connecting with people on an emotional level is far more effective than a bunch of statistics.  Take a good look at some Powerpoint you’re currently using.  Does it tell a memorable, coherent story or does it lay out a bunch of statistics?  Does it sing about solving problems or is it just more blah-blah-blah?

Figure out the story you want to tell then write a memorable tune to carry it forth.  Got it?

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October 15, 2013 · 9:01 am

Better

Ready for a two-fer TunesDay? Today I have two songs that deal with the same issue – our approach to the world and, therefore, how we’re likely to approach business as well. The first is from The Kinks, who are probably better known for Van Halen‘s interpretation of one of their songs (You Really Got Me) then they are for creating some of the most innovative music of the late 60’s and the 70’s and 80’s.  The second one is from The Boss, mostly because it hits on the same theme, I love his music, and its my screed!

First The Kinks:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdCVlmmnOzA

If you’re ever feeling a little down, this might just be the uplift you need.  I don’t know of a more positive song.  The core of it is contained in these lines:

Be an optimist instead,
And somehow happiness will find you.
Forget what happened yesterday,
I know that better things are on the way.

And that’s really the business point as well.  Unsuccessful people tend to look externally, in my opinion.  The market is bad, a competitor cut prices, a key employee just left, what can we do?  There are always things out of one’s control that are the root of the problems the business is having. As the song points out, a positive attitude lets happiness – which in business is often measured by success – find you.

The Boss weighs in:

What’s so interesting about this song – one of Bruce‘s most positive – is that it was written when his life was kind of confused.  He had dissolved the E Street Band and left New Jersey to live in California.  He had gotten divorced and had changed the style of his music and none of this was well-received by his legion of fans (me among them!).  In the midst of that time, this:

These are better days baby
These are better days it’s true
These are better days
There’s better days shining through

Maybe it’s a lost soul trying to convince himself that everything is fine or maybe it’s a man who faces each day sounding a positive note on whatever may come.   It’s the same point Ray Davies is making in our first song – being an optimist at heart leads one further along in life and in business because, as Bruce puts it “it’s a sad man my friend who’s livin’ in his own skin/And can’t stand the company.”

Make sense?  Oh – extra credit:  In September 2010, Ray Davies released “See My Friends”, an album of reworked classic Kinks songs, which contains a duet of ‘Better Things’ with Bruce Springsteen.  The streams converge!

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