Relight My Fire
This image will haunt you for weeks.
It was a hit. It was an uncontrollable monster of music that soared up the charts on demon wings, looting and pillaging as it went. It left a trail of scorched musicians behind it and established Take That as the quintessential boys band, proud conquerors of the genre the New Kids On The Block had begun.
It wheedled its way into a million heads across the globe, lodged itself firmly between the frontal lobe and the place where annoying music goes around and around… and refused to be dislodged. For months at a time¹.
But that has nothing to do with freelancing, does it?
In a way, it does. In a way, it has something to do with any kind of work, any kind of job, any kind of vocation. I don’t know the lyrics, but the title is something we all need sometimes: a way to rekindle the flames of passion that drive us to do what we do.
Bizarrely, almost anything can do the job of putting a spark to the kindling hidden deep down inside, no matter how damp and inflammable it may seem. It could be an idea that appears on a blog. It could be a chat with someone that kicks off a chain of ideas. It could be something you see when you’re out doing the shopping.
Heaven forbid, it could even be an infuriating tune that gets stuck in your head and refuses to go away. That you find yourself humming in the shower or singing, even though you don’t know the words. That drives you absolutely nuts at two o’clock in the morning and makes you want to drill a hole in your head to let it out.
Whatever it is, hold it close. Nurture it. Tell it how beautiful it is and take it out for dinner. Feed it expensive food and champagne, take it to the movies, then bring it home and cuddle it on the sofa. Because wherever it came from, whatever angel delivered it, that idea just saved you from sitting around, despondently moping and destroying your business through inaction.
Come on, baby, light my fire.
¹ If you’re feeling truly masochistic, you can find it on YouTube.
Been too long. Apologies. However, I return wiser, intoxicated with awe at the marvellous people you have attracted and exchanged with Spike. Yet, it feels like a homecoming; reassuring return to your lyrics and energy.
Oh how I wonder at the connectedness! Simultaneous moments – rotes – experiences occurring to each of the commenters/bloggers in the sphere I have recently entered that transcend the upper layers of synchronicity, going beyond into deep spacial group consciousness, tossed to each other without need of word.
Couple of nights ago, I sat fascinated with the notion of living in an age, at an age fortunate to comprehend, embodied by the single vibration that remained constant throughout the octave change never previously scaled so swiftly. Here I sat, now the wrong side of my mid-forties watching a SkyTV interactive loop of the Electric Proms 09, spine tingling throughout the sublime performance of Dame Shirley Bassey, all seventy-two years of her never looking and sounding better. Rapture and time encapsulated, endless digitised cycle replacing videotape (one of her songs is History Repeating) as she took her utterly faultless cue into the memorable opening bars of Goldfinger, evoking recall of the first time I heard it, where I was, the smells, the emotion of 1960’s childhood instantly transported to the present moment. Her cover of the Door’s Light My Fire – the Bassey version as distinctive an original as anything by the late great Jim Morrison – rendered me further helpless in this nostalgic timeslip, only to be pinned against the sofa by Diamonds Are Forever. The half-light of screen glow created a peripheral vision of the wallpaper of my parents lounge, the feel of the cushion next to me that of the one so long ago, the sense of teenage rite of passage – being allowed to stay up late to watch and hear a voice that dissolves forty-odd years of time. So much has changed between that first sound of a steel-grey/silver Aston Martin DB5 backing that magnificent horn section, wah, WAH, wah…GOLD…FINGA….(fabulous art-deco Gaumont Theatre, Finchley, as it was then, if you must know) and the world of an interactive red button icon on a Dolby Pro-Logic HD widescreen.
That night I couldn’t get the “Diamonds” riff out of my head. Beautiful harmonious strings, still there at first light.
Here’s the thing. I periodically, sporadically to be truthful of late, lecture around the UK on dream symbolism. I’ve been blessed with a faculty that to describe would be best left to another time and venue, however I recognised it had a place in helping others to use it for business problem-solving and personal growth purposes. Songs are a common feature for us all, intruding on our waking reality and dream state. I find it helpful, among other aspects, to assign a connotation purely by significance with the song title. Needless to elucidate, I refer you back to your romantic “wine, dine, cherish” call to action: my repetitive ‘diamond’ sparkled into the furthest darkest corner of my mind, revealing a stunning facet I’d completely overlooked in my outer search for solution; a timeless ‘forever’ reminder of inner wisdom. The stresses and strains of our modern lives in comparison with those of the 1960’s equated in my mind to the eons of pressure and fissures of rock creating the hardest compound in the earth. We are all diamonds in the rough, whatever our chosen vocation, circumstance or continent, freelance or otherwise, being readied for singing our song and shining our light.
Brilliant post Spike.
Postscript: diamond words still a work in progress. Doors’, with the apostrophe kicked firmly the other side of it. Aficionado’s will understand when I conclude with The End.
Geez you Pommies can go on for bluddy ever…I thought I could waffle…:-P
Songs in ya heads…dreams, drills and diamonds…sounds like a 3M Business Proposal for their next mining operation.
Takin’ songs out for dinner? Cuddling on the sofa…what’s wrong with a kiss boy? There’s no need to stampeding straight for the sofa like a bull at a gate! Give it a kiss!
Butt seriously…nearly…I got my fire lit today by shear bureaucratic insanity…I should say more, shear bureaucratic insanity. And I should also say that I’ve gone SUPER NOVA!!!
I got my NSW Business Name Registration declined because my business name is “considered to be offensive to some members of the community” – nosh-it! Wood-Fired Pizza. Yep! That’s pretty offensive!
What’s offensive is that these drop-kicks didn’t bother to look up the National Business Name Register where there are 7 Australian Businesses registered with variations of ‘nosh it’. 4 of these are already in NSW and 3 of them start with “No Shit”…not to mention that 1 of the 7 Registered Names is MINE already Registered in the ACT (That’s AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY!!!)…heretofore considered to be the most anal state in the known Universe!
So Yep! I reckon ya pretty spot-on their as usual Spikester…the fire can be lit by the most bizarre things…not that I consider myself fire retardant or even damp.
And as for that Michael fella callin’ us all “diamonds in the rough”?…Speak for yourself paleface! ;-P
As usual, a great read by both gents…:-)
Cheers
Stephen G
Multi-faceted Precision Cut!
PS http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/inflammable (Hehe! There is no escape for the Grammar Nazi…every bluddy chance I get mate… For EVVUGH!