The Experience & Beauty of Wayne Coyne

As we grow older we gain valuable insights from the pain we experience, but our society looks down upon age as a repugnant disease. America celebrates the untalented spirit of youth and tries to silence those who they deem “older”. If we allow the creative spirit to thrive and continue, we see the results in heart-stopping fashion. Artists, musicians, writers, and athletes tend to reach a zenith as they grow older, but often our society tries to dissuade such efforts and inject the situation with a bland neophyte.

Wayne Coyne is a perfect example. When he first started the band The Flaming Lips, their songs were at times wobbly and contained uninspired lyrics, but after dealing with the chaos of success and the heartbreak of disaster, Coyne found a voice that resonated with unbridled truth and honesty in albums like The Soft Bulletin, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, and At War with the Mystics. Songs like “Do You Realize?”, “The Spark that Bled”, and “The Sound of Failure” contain ideas that resonate with me greatly because Coyne has passed through the stage of trying to impress people for attention, and has now settled into the comfortable role of producing great art.

It becomes hilarious to watch as the new talents enter the world of art and our society celebrates them because of their youthfulness, but yet they lack that magical inhibition that they will soon gain with experience. Think of all the silly love songs that teenage musicians wail on pop radio and then compare such trite products to the powerful edicts of people like Roger Waters and Neil Peart, who write a powerful truth that can alter your ideals in a single sentence. I don't think anyone can claim such a powerful epiphany with a tune like “Hit Me Baby One More Time”.

Creativity is like a peach. When you pick it too early it can be tart and unenjoyable, but if given time, it can produce some of the most joyuous nectar ever known to man.

“Do You Realize?” by The Flaming Lips
Do you realize that you have the most beautiful face?
Do you realize we're floating in space?
Do you realize that happiness makes you cry?
Do you realize that everyone you know someday will die?

And instead of saying all of your goodbyes, let them know
You realize that life goes fast;
It's hard to make the good things last.
You realize the sun doesn't go down,
It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning round.



“Mr. Ambulance Driver” by The Flaming Lips
Waiting for the ambulance to come.
Hoping that it doesn't come too late.
Hearing the sirens in the distance,
“Hold on! Help is on the way!”

Mr. Ambulance Driver, I'm right here beside her,
And, though I'll live, somehow I've found,
Mr. Ambulance Driver, I'm not a real survivor
'Cause I'm wishing that I was the one that
Wasn't gonna be here anymore.

Oh, we can't trade places.
Our lives are strangely our own.
Mr. Ambulance Driver, tell me
For everyone that dies, someone new is born?

"Lies, Lies, Lies Ye-ah"

America is choking on its own vomit of lies. Our culture has become obsessed with getting what they want at any expense that we don't understand the consequences of such behavior. Newton proved that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, and that applies to our own actions and spirits. The whole mindset of this country has become “grab what you can and run”; it is causing the rapid decay of all we know: drug companies assigning medicine to patients who don't need it, inflated insurance costs (what is insurance but a way to just make money anyway?), gas heights when there is no shortage, and on and on and on.

As Americans we eat everything thrown our way (literally and realistically). Watch any commercials on TV and everyone is a lie. Children are being taught to lie, or at least deny, even if they don't have to. Lawyers can always find “an expert” to challenge another “expert's” findings in court cases. We hear on the news how we are finding new ways to help save the human race, but later find those same “innovations” are actually killing us.

The state of America reminds me of the Wizard in The Wizard of Oz. The Wizard controls this intimading machine to scare people into being obedient, but behind the curtain is a powerless old white man whose only power is the use of fear and deception. The rest on the world has found this curtain, just like Toto did in the film, and they see the frail, true nature of our country: a false idealism that has been created to trick people into compliance.

We need to learn to live through a paradigm of love, and shed this desire to out do everyone through unneeded competition. The people of this country have beautiful ideas, but they are constanly being stifled by the continuous sea of lies that tell us that we are not smart enough, not beautiful enough, and not successful enough. We need to charge through the Wizard's curtain and kick his ass. Our ideals are supposed to be embedded through democracy, but, if the current accpeting totalitarianism continues, our freedoms will continue to rot until we are left in a state of regretful enlightenment.

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