Autobiographical Songs=Mike Posner, Living in the Now

Mike Posner seems like a real good kid (age 31). Like everyone he’s had his ups and downs. An up might be his song I Took a Pill in Ibiza, downloaded over a billion times, a down might be:

Father dying of brain cancer

Friends and musical acquaintances dying

Broken relationships

In his video “Moving On” he confesses that he’s been feeling a little off. So, Mike Posner did a brave thing: in the middle of a promising music career filled with concert dates and album deadlines, he stepped away.

And, not only that, he decided to walk across America.

I am old enough to remember the articles in National Geographic by Peter Jenkins walking across America in the 1970s. Peter had graduated college and found himself at a crossroads. His marriage was on the rocks, the world seemed like it was on fire, the Vietnam war and hippie movement were winding down, and he needed a cause, something to go for. Jenkins documented his journey with text and photos. A camera was supplied by National Geographic when he stopped at their offices in Washington DC as he was passing through—the sponsorship paid off as Jenkins articles generated tons of interest from readers.

Anyway, it seems that there are junctures in life where folks decide to get off the fast-track, treadmill and hop into a slow zone or reboot. For some this is called bucket list—which can have selfish connotations attached to it. Either way, it is about finding one’s self, or truer self. Or just trying to get real.

MY MISSION

1) My mission is enjoy my life and help others enjoy theirs.

2) Be as authentic to other people as possible.

3) Help others to experience transcendence.

You might think this kind of decision would put his musical career on hold. Instead it reinvigorated it and in fact supplied material for 2 new albums. Many of the songs could be categorized as autobiographical.

Posner drew from his walk to write songs about moving on, feeling good, talk about his father's death, or simply as a springboard to focus on other things. He was doing life different and seeing things from a new perspective.

He walked through weather, rain or shine, hot and cold. Road traffic and even worse, road boredom. He was forced to look inward and re-evaluate.

MY GOALS

1.      Leave each town we go through a little bit better than when we arrived.

2.      Practice deep listening: I will be spending periods of my walk compassionately listening to people with as much of my full attention as possible. This means listening to others, not to the voice in my head.

3.      Love everybody.

4.      Sing for people.

5.      Enjoy where I am in the journey. Don’t waste time obsessing about getting to the end.

Along the way he was bitten by a rattlesnake. Now, I thought there was like an anti-venom magic serum that reversed the effects, but apparently this is still a very real thing, as in=Mike had to be airlifted and go through re-hab in order to walk again and finish the journey. He returned to the place where he left off to continue walking.

A Real Good Kid might be described as a concept project as he asks in his introduction that people listen to it all the way through in one sitting. The songs are highly personal and reflective. There aren’t a lot of hooks or throw-away lines. Some of them are difficult to listen to, but they are nitty-gritty authentic. Same for “Move On.”

The song “Live Before I Die” (see here on YouTube, https://youtu.be/uXeZNXdu-gs) is a good example of an autobiographical song—it tells the story of his walk, in 4 minutes. Also, he wasn’t exactly unplugged from music on the actual walk—“While I walk, I will be playing free surprise concerts for people.”

So in my opinion Mike exemplifies my own philosophy about how to live for yourself and at the same time living for others.