I listened to Belly’s “Star” album in the car yesterday and had to play “Slow Dog” seven times in a row just to exhaust the excitement I was feeling before I could move on. This happens every time I play the album.

And I’m listening to a flamenco mix this morning and trying to figure out why anyone would want to listen to Jesse Cook and Ottmar Liebert when the real thing is so much more moving.

In general, this is true of my feelings about a lot of art — the good, deep, powerful stuff is so engaging that it boggles my mind that the watered down, crappy stuff gets so much more attention. Is it that people don’t like having to engage with it? Is it that the fear of having to think and feel so deeply is so powerful that it threatens? Is complexity that unwelcome?

I can’t for the life of me think of music as anything like a background to anything. It may be part of the fabric of an experience, but for me it needs to be a powerful thread in that experience, something I can focus on and zero into when I choose.

This is why I don’t listen to music as I write poems. I can’t do that. I need the space so I can dig in.

“Music should never be harmless,” said Robbie Robertson, by which he meant that no music should leave you the same after you’ve heard it. I agree.