In 2006, I was living in a townhouse in West Hollywood, fresh off the success of my album Awake is the New Sleep, falling in love with my new girlfriend Ione Skye, writing songs, having fun and getting deep into my “spiritual path”.
I put that phrase in inverted commas because I find it laughable now that I once thought it was possible to be either “on” or “off” a path of human growth and learning. From where I stand now, that doesn’t really seem like a negotiable aspect of our lives. People with “spiritual” practices like to flatter themselves that they are more consciously engaging with the process of unfolding life’s mystery. I used to believe that. But I don’t anymore. It’s too convenient. This journey is a trip, baby, and you don’t get to control it.
Anyway, back to the West Hollywood townhouse, and sitting at a small upright piano I’d purchased. I was really grappling with this idea at the time. Trying to make sense of my inherent acceptance of both the yin and yang, the sacred and the profane, the holy and the silly.
I guess I’m inherently what has been called a “poptimist”; someone who “believes that pop music is as worthy of professional critique and interest as rock music”. When I discovered Andy Warhol at 18 years old, I developed an appreciation of plastic synthetic disposable joy, that I still have today.
At the same time, I can be an aesthetic snob. I believe I have better taste than most. I believe I can tell the good shit from the rest, and I believe there is some moral value in supporting that kind of art.
But I digress. I sat at my piano one day thinking about a spiritual teaching I had heard in India during my travels, about the seeker who asks for peanuts from their guru, when they are being offered diamonds.
I don’t know why, but they both sounded good, the diamonds and the peanuts. Why discriminate between wonders? I was hungry at 28 years old for EVERYTHING, I still am in a way. I just have the ability to delay the gratification these days. And that’s called maturity.
In this song, I can hear the blueprint for what would become Love Me Like the World is Ending. “Please me with your promises and hurt me with your lies”. Same idea. I want both. Seriousness and Silliness. High and low art. Treasure and trash. Sex and Candy…or something.
Anyway this demo still sounds good to me. It’s me recording into my laptop, banging away at a piano, standing on the brink of my own hunger and ambition, being offered lots of options, and responding “Yes, please”…Enjoy!