Some of you may not know (or care about) this, but I am writing this to you as a senior on the cusp of graduating out into the big, bluish-green world.
As seniors are wont to do, I’ve been spending a lot of time lately thinking about what an idiot I am (or optimistically) have been.
When you’re young (read: a freshman), you feel very firmly about a lot of things.
Perhaps you feel that you must pursue a path in life that is both creatively satisfying and profoundly noble.
Maybe you think that intellectual suffering and self-denial are noble. You might feel and think about these things very strongly, and somewhere in your tiny freshman brain be wrapped up in the idea that one should like “good music” and not like “bad music.”
More often than not, this translates to “one should like ‘difficult music’ and not pop music.” Then, you spend a lot of time carefully reasoning about what is worthy and unworthy of being liked, as if your taste in music is some highly pure substance capable of being tainted by anything and requiring constant vigilance and prejudice.
Oh, my dear freshmen. Oh, my dear everyone. This is not true.
Eventually, as you learn all the things that your undergraduate experience is meant to teach you (vodka=bad, success=relative and identity=fluid), you get a bit more jaded about things like unblemished musical taste.
Normally, being jaded is a bad thing, but in this case it’s just a necessary step that allows something really important and beneficial to happen —like rediscovering Mushyface.
Mushyface, for those of you wondering, is a term coined by Mike Doughty, one of the most talented musicians of our day.
Mushyface is the purely happy reaction one has to a particularly appealing song —often a pop song of less-then-technical mastery. I first heard about Mushyface when Doughty was talking about the Goyte song “Somebody That I Used to Know.” Every time he hears that song, he gets unstoppable, instant Mushyface.
The other night, I was watched a film in which the song “Time After Time” factors prominently. Do you know what happened? Instant Mushyface. Do you know what I did? Nothing. I just let it happen.
There was a time when I would have steeled myself against the deliciously melodramatic 80s lyrics and ignored the twinging in my heart when Cyndi Lauper sung.
Now, I have learned not to care. I have learned to embrace “Time After Time,” even if it is nothing more than a calculated ploy on my emotions, manufactured the way only 1984 knew how to spit out.
So what if it’s a ploy? It works. I feel something when I listen to that song. What I feel is Mushyface.
Sure, I could refuse to admit that I enjoy this song, but I know exactly whe the outcome of that would be: There would be one fewer thing on this planet that makes me happy.
Who’s got time for that? Aren’t there already too few things that make you happy? Maybe that’s not true of everyone, but I suspect it is.
Learn from my mistakes, folks.
Learn from my years of self-denial in pursuit of an unattainable gold standard of musical taste. What did I think was going to happen, even if I did accept enjoyment from only the best of the best? An awards ceremony at the end of my life?
Most of all, learn not to care so much. Learn to let Cyndi Lauper into your life. Let in whatever thing you’ve been guilting yourself out of enjoying for so long. Contaminate your spotless record of conscientiously hating Ke$ha, Fall Out Boy or Smash Mouth. Just let go.
Take it from me, or take it from the 42-year-old Mike Doughty, who now sings about making out and watching fireflies, on occasion. The reason is irrelevant. What’s important is that you do it. Mostly, being discriminating is a good quality, but sometimes it just doesn’t matter. You’ll make yourself miserable over nothing. Call it what you will, but I call that growing up. Mushyface, and the whole world Mushyfaces with you.
