Sure, controversy might swirl around Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter—with some country fans saying it doesn’t belong in the genre and some Mrs. Carter fans saying they prefer her more “normal” albums—but for my money, it’s one of the best new albums to come out in some time. It strikes me as a work of deeply genuine self-exploration, and it’s just got some really good songs.
One I particularly like is called “II MOST WANTED” featuring Miley Cyrus. I actually shared a stage with Miley a while back in The Night Before. She was super nice and on the ball. I also remember her doing this weird, crazy New York accent voice. Anyway, her and Beyoncé together make for a great duet. But, ever since the first time I heard it, I wondered why it didn’t have any drums. Like if you listen to it, you might notice, drums are sort of conspicuously absent.
So for a while now, I’ve wanted to play drums along with this song. Well, today was the day. Now, I’m not a professional drummer, and I don’t think I got any perfect takes here, so please forgive my mistakes. I also had to stop doing takes because it was my 3-year-old’s nap time. But in the midst of my joyous indulgence taking a morning off real work to play drums for a couple hours, I also had some thoughts bubble up about why I was doing what I was doing, what the point of creativity is anyway, and what that might say about the crossroads we “artists” find ourselves at today…
Here’s a transcript of my babbling:
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JGL: Well, that was take one. Mostly off, a lot of mistakes. Guess I’m gonna do a take two now.
Should I talk for a second about why I’m doing this though? I remember when I first heard this song, I thought to myself, why aren’t there drums on this song? And there must have been a reason, right? I’m sure they didn’t just forget. At some point, I mean, I imagine they probably had drums. This is a Beyoncé album. It’s not like too expensive for them to get a drummer in to play drums in a song. And at some point, somebody, whether it was Beyonce herself or maybe Miley or somebody else, said, like, what if we just do it without drums? And they liked that idea. I don’t know. That’s what I have in my head. So I don’t mean to go against the creative intent of the auteurs, the artists. But I don’t know, I just want to hear drums. And even more than wanting to hear them, I want to play them.
Not because I think anybody’s even necessarily going to listen. Maybe some people will. I’m recording it so that people can listen. Although mostly so that I can listen later. But I just wanted to do it.
That’s, I guess, the point I want to make is that part of the point of music or movies or shows or storytelling or art, creativity, whatever you want to call it, part of the point is just to do it. And that’s it. Just because it’s fun to do it.
All right, I’ll stop talking for now. I’m going to do another take. That take was not so good. But that’s the fun. Keep doing it over and over until it gets better. What fun it is if you just go bloop and it’s perfect right away. What fun is that?
Made it through. No big mistakes. That upfront fill though, I want to get that stronger. I’m supposed to be on a work call. I’m supposed to be working.
Not quite it. It’s getting a little better. More things I want to do. I can keep doing this and doing this and doing this. The repetition, the practice, the process, that’s what feels good. I don’t understand. I mean, I do understand. I understand partially because, you know, I have kids and my son makes music and he likes the shortcuts. I’m always having to try to set some boundaries so that he doesn’t just use the shortcuts. Because it’s frustrating to keep going and not get it right. But it feels so good to get better bit by bit. And of course, my experience isn’t so much practicing drums. Drums has always been something I do in some spare time that I just love doing. But it’s the same. It’s the same with acting. Practice and practice your material. Learn your lines, so to speak. It takes just a repetition, rehearsal, and even when you’re shooting, doing take after take some directors do many takes some directors do fewer takes, but it’s the doing it the doing it the doing it that’s the thing that feels good it’s not having it done once it’s done that’s the sort of angst-ridden part. That’s sort of the boring part. Sometimes people think that, like, oh, that’s the point of being an artist. Everyone’s like, oh, this song you made, this movie you made, there you are walking the red carpet because you made a thing, and isn’t that the glory moment? But no, that’s not the glory moment. The glory moment is this. Bit by bit, it gets better and better. Eventually, you can do it. It’s easy. I’m going to do some more.
Hi. Can I get a sec? Sorry. Well... Oh, I think someone’s gonna ask me to stop playing drums. I think my three-year-old is probably trying to go to sleep. Yeah, it’s about that time. Well, that wasn’t perfect. Haven’t done a perfect one yet.
You probably could. I mean, I’m sure you could, enter this song into some AI tool and say, add drums. And it would add drums, probably sounding better than the drums that I’m adding right now.
But why?
I mean, I guess because it supports the song, maybe it sounds good. Maybe some people will like listening to music like that, but I don’t know. I feel like to me, ever since I first started listening to music, which was before I can even remember, when I was a baby, a big part of it was the people.
You could feel the people playing the music.
You feel a connection to them.
You know that they’re a person, like you’re a person.
Oh, I don’t want to stop, but that’s, you know, that’s how it goes. I might do some more later. Or maybe, you know, maybe some of these are good enough for the sake of this post.
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