The Art of Peer Pressure

In my last big article I talked about the humanity and life that the artist necessarily gives to his music, and now I'd just like to talk a little bit about how we as listeners bring our own existence into the work, and in that way create or make its meaning manifest.

On Wednesday morning I read that my D.A.R.E. officer had been found deceased in the drivers seat of his silver ford focus from a self inflicted gunshot wound. I think he was the first police officer I ever met, and the guy that made me think it would be OK to have police officer as my plan B career choice, because simply put, he was just a nice guy. He didn't try to scare us straight, he just treated us like what we were, a bunch of little kids that only really knew about police from cops and robbers. He was gentle, and kind, and I knew that that was what I wanted to be and do with my life.

After reading all the comments and closing the article, I tried to move on and go back to work but "The art of Peer Pressure" just kind of came up in my head. I didn't summon it, I was just tapping my fingers, and there it was, mid beat just humming along in my head.   Now there's something really special to me about "The art of Peer Pressure". It moves, but in a different way. It's not slow or fast, and maybe its because of the clack and the drum, but it's steady in a cold cold way. Kendrick raps softly, and he just keeps going. He lays on word after word of his story saving only the title, select verses, and the chorus to explain it. It's a song that personifies its content, a long aimless drive that just goes until it breaks. In that content he illuminates the duality of who he is and who he becomes, and the strange unresolved tension that that masking presents. I would especially like to present that. This song is unresolved. They drive around, they break in, they drive out, and drive around, and the song ends. Kendrick is still his troubled self, there is no resolution.

And where is there resolution. A cop dies broken, and the criminals hate themselves for the crime, but its all they have to be and what else can the cop do but do his job? Everyone's hurting. Everyone's speaking soft. One was gentle and one was not, and one is being gentle with himself and the other is dead. And yet everything just keep doing. A cop dies broken, and the criminals hate themselves for the crime, but its all they have, their job and their identity.

We made a right, we made a left, but we were just circling life.

***

In writing this I wasn't sure if it was something that I wanted to write about. I didn't want to trivialize something as incomprehensible as a loss of human life, but there's a Jewish tradition that goes that even if you visit the grave of a stranger you leave a small stone on their grave in recognition of their life, their death, and your witness to them.  I'll leave this as my stone. A symbol of my witnessing of a life.