Introduction
So much of my life is music that I tend to expose others to my musical tastes quite frequently. So this is a music-related editorial I initially hid then decided to put up about what I have learned following the work of one of my favorite artists, Buck 65. He's very... "dynamic." Each record is different from the last and he is constantly gaining and losing fans from varying his style. Personally, I think I see a theme trending. He's a very emotional individual, in fact, one of his albums is titled More Heart Than Brains and his romantic relationships and how he sees love as an inspiration and motivator seem to affect how he makes music greatly.
In the late 00's Buck 65 married the love of his life. He was happy. And his music reflected that. At the height of his love and infatuation for his wife he wrote three pieces of music for her. One was a challenge to write a song in 24 hours on a topic of his choice; he chose his wife and the song MLE was created within 24 hours. Created near the end of their relationship, it is still somewhat mournful. The second is a piece that was only ever performed live in 2008 backed by a full orchestra with his wife in the audience, a song called Feels Like (Emily). Keeping to the theme of his former wife's name, the last song he made for her, was a duet with female collaborator Jenn Grant called Paper Airplane. It is a single from his 2011 album, the music video of which pays homage to the novel The Great Gatsby. In it, he states that to him "girls are called Emily." For maybe a year I had been searching for the meaning behind that gorgeous line when I discovered he was referring to his wife.
- How does love— romantic, mutual, or familial— affect what you create?
- Are you more heart? Or are you more brains?
More Heart Than Brains
In the late 00's Buck 65 married the love of his life. He was happy. And his music reflected that. At the height of his love and infatuation for his wife he wrote three pieces of music for her. One was a challenge to write a song in 24 hours on a topic of his choice; he chose his wife and the song MLE was created within 24 hours. Created near the end of their relationship, it is still somewhat mournful. The second is a piece that was only ever performed live in 2008 backed by a full orchestra with his wife in the audience, a song called Feels Like (Emily). Keeping to the theme of his former wife's name, the last song he made for her, was a duet with female collaborator Jenn Grant called Paper Airplane. It is a single from his 2011 album, the music video of which pays homage to the novel The Great Gatsby. In it, he states that to him "girls are called Emily." For maybe a year I had been searching for the meaning behind that gorgeous line when I discovered he was referring to his wife.
The hands of the clock on the wall are the enemy.
I feel them on my throat; girls are called Emily.
Stillness is illness, your voice is the remedy.
Towards the end of the making of his 2011 album, his relationship with his wife was going downhill. In the final track of that album we see a hint of the future of the relationship in a song called Final Approach. Another duet, it is half in English and half in French. The French translation is provided with thanks to Exnihilo-nihil. 
Without understanding both sides of the song (the English side and the French) the song seems an innocent take on a long distance relationship. But seeing both sides it becomes clear, Buck 65 is burning inside and feels like he and his wife are far from each other while he is spiraling out of control.
Without understanding both sides of the song (the English side and the French) the song seems an innocent take on a long distance relationship. But seeing both sides it becomes clear, Buck 65 is burning inside and feels like he and his wife are far from each other while he is spiraling out of control.So Much For Forever
After the divorce from his wife, he receded from the music scene in everything but social media. He didn't put out music for a long while. A stark contrast to the songs on his previous album and the first music heard from Buck 65 in nearly three years, 2014's So Much Forever is dark. The song Sublimation encapsulates this and is instead a damning duet in English and French (translation?). He has been hurt, you can feel it, and he is still hurting. His emotional distress drives this album, that much is clear.
I don't know how to love myself. I'm hoping you can show me how.
Cross my heart with all your might. Lift me up and slow me down.
—Bike For Three! - Sublimation
We've seen how emotionally driven his music is, but, winding down, what is this journal all about? Mainly, I've wanted to illustrate how much emotions can drive our creative side in a journal and the importance of this for a while now and this man's story has given me the opportunity to do so. But it's more the reason why I want to emphasize our emotional drives that I think is the bigger issue. A lot of us are emotionally driven when creating; poets are notorious for channeling emotions for example. But even those of us who aren't motivated to create our catharses still become engaged in the literature they read and the art they enjoy because of emotional involvement, as even Buck 65 admits is a part of making art.
I read that you said making the album was a very cathartic process.
On certain days, I'd be feeling so shitty, I could hardly get out of bed. So I started channeling how I was feeling into some songs. I felt like I owed it to myself in some way, you know? I was going through something so big and I had to do something with it. I didn't want to have just this negative chunk of my life; I realized that something good has to come out of this, so I forced myself to write.
Was that a difficult thing to do?
Yeah, I really didn’t want to, to be honest. When you're going through that, you kind of don't want to do anything. Mostly I wanted to lie down all day long. But I'd do it. I'd make myself and then the next day I'd listen to what I'd done, and it was like, 'That actually feels great that I got something done.' The songs are really hard to hear, but they make me feel good, because I have a feeling that this album might affect people when they hear it. And that's what you want to do. It sounds pretentious to say this is art but that's what artists want to do when they're making art. So if nothing else, Neverlove is effective.
Neverlove
Neverlove is the music that spurred me to write this. In it, Buck 65 isn't necessarily happy or depressed, but the emotional aspect is still heavily felt. And this is the important part. Involving who you're creating for is just as important as the creation, even if it all is is consideration for that audience. Even if that audience is just yourself.
Especially with NaNoWriMo coming up, I'd like to emphasize this. Spending less time on the shape of someone's eyes and more on the shape their dreams take and how their fears manifest will stick with your reader longer than physical attributes.
- As writers/artists, who do you create for?
- Have you ever created something only as a means to cope?
