by Kevin Burton
It is very much like me that I saved a fortune cookie message which reads: “share your musical talents generously, for they are a gift to others.”
Saved it even though I know sayings in cookies from my favorite Chinese restaurant can be amusing, but they are not messages.
Unfortunately it is even more like me that this un-message was pushed off into a far corner of my work desk, abandoned and forgotten, much like my alleged musical talents.
I noted this wryly as December turned to January this year, and now we’re into February.
It reminded me of my last-chance mindset in 2007. At that time I was focused not on music, but affairs of the heart.
I sat squarely within my favorite Hall & Oates lyric (from “Did It In A Minute)” “everybody always laughs at love but what they want is to be proven wrong.”
I was despairing of ever finding a wife when a commercial for the dating site e-Harmony came on the radio. I was in Ohio at my father’s house (since sold). That commercial was no more of a true message than the one in my fortune cookie, but it sent me into action nevertheless.
I vowed then that I would fight against my tendencies, and try to keep a positive attitude about meeting someone, for the rest of that calendar year, 2007.
Well that was the year I met Jeannette, who is now my lawfully-wedded wife. So a positive attitude essentially saved my life back then.
So for better or worse, to coin a phrase, here I sit. Spin the conversation back to my music. This New Year’s Day I vowed to embrace (fake?) a positive attitude about my music this calendar year. If nothing works out or if nothing is underway by the end of 2025, I will say, that’s the way the fortune cookie crumbles, and forget it.
Put up or shut up.
I have twice taken my original material to studio engineer/talent evaluator types to get an opinion on the marketability of my songs. Both of them couldn’t wait to re-arrange – essentially junk – everything I had done.
The first guy heard my struggling-artist song “When The Lights Go Down” and wanted to happy it up into the resolution of everything. Well I can certainly write that happy song if I need to. But Lights isn’t that song.
The second guy had some encouraging things to say. But he compared one of my songs to Up With People. I can’t think of a more damning insult toward a serious artist aspiring to write any kind of music. He also wanted to bring in other people to “collaborate” with me, in other words to trash my stuff.
So maybe that was my answer – that I’m not good enough to write songs and not good enough to fix whatever flaws my originals have – and I just need to live with it. If so, I will shout that from the rooftops on Jan. 1, 2026. But as for this calendar year, I am as all-in as I can be.
I got a mini confidence boost Friday at karaoke night. Now karaoke is fool’s gold for anyone who is serious about producing music. But at this point, that is where I am and I need that wind, be it a faint one, behind my back.
Here is how karaoke appreciation works. You pick a song somebody likes and a little “yeah!” goes off in their head. If you attack the song with respect and passion, people notice that too.
And if you really get on top of a song, put some style on it, that’s the point at which the more outgoing people will consider approaching you after the song to tell you how much they liked it.
There were three souls who were quite complimentary of my singing Friday. One was a waitress, one a really good singer in her own right, the third an obvious lover of music, a friend of that singer.
I’ve had more than my share of that over the years. There was the time a cowboy type in Dodge City heard me sing “Drivin’ My Life Away” by Eddie Rabbit, saw what I was drinking, banged one down on the counter for me told me to “keep singin’ them songs.”
I will never forget that one because he didn’t say it like songs. I came out like “sauungs.”
If you called me a karaoke hero, you wouldn’t be wrong. But though I have tried here and there, I’ve never made it past that level.
Soooooo, I have already stepped up my practice time on covers and originals. One of the friends I met with for karaoke Friday has agreed that she and I should at least nag one another toward making something happen musically. So we will see.
I’m hoping for another positive-attitude-driven pivot point such as in 2007 of course, to see something tangible come from my music. But there have been many times recently that I have played my heart out on my keyboard in the middle of the night (wearing headphones so as not to wake Jeannette) and just taking joy in the things I have already created. That in itself is more than nothing.
What I hate most is the idea that these songs I have birthed will die when I die. So at the very least I want to get a demo-quality version of the songs before I go.
In college a friend called me the “gutless wonder” for making the least hay from the most musical talent. That label sticks to me as readily as does “karaoke hero.” So will I end up more gutless, or more wonder.
Jeannette and I believe God had more than a little something to do with our meeting and subsequent marriage. Anything worthwhile that comes from my music will need to be propelled by Him as well.
Then there is Proverbs 14:23 (NASB), “In all labor there is profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty.”
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