Existentialism in the Music

     Reaching the end of my adventure through undergraduate study I have come to only have one regret.  I do not even know if I call it a regret as the construct has nonetheless been a significant influence on my life.  The regret, at long last, if it is even regret at all, is that I entered college after Dave Matthews swept the college scene when he and his band first began touring in the 90s.  But that I missed their rise to fame is not the source of my fascination with the band.  The band's philosophy is.
      I discovered the Dave Matthews Band when I was somewhereabouts halfway through high school, but I only listened to this band because they had a bomb saxophone player, the late LeRoi Moore, and I had the Recently EP album, which was the first time I ever remember having an idol.  I am a saxophone player.  My whole family is of the musical sort, so why it is that I am trying to fool myself that I am an academic type I haven’t the slightest. I digress. Hearing the way that this band played really resonated with me, especially that I had never heard anything like this music, this jam-solo style, ever before in my life.  It was not until I came to college, in my freshman year specifically, that I began to absorb and try to digest the lyrics that Dave let loose amidst the band’s melodies.  It was at about that same time that I discovered Jean-Paul Sartre and the rest of the existentialist cohort while taking an intro Philosophy class.  Really, Jean-Paul Sartre is the reason why I chose Philosophy as one of my majors.  What does this have to do with Dave?  Existentialism appealed very much to me.  Especially since at that time I was amidst a very significant transitional phase in my life, the things that Dave spoke about echoed very much the same sense of responsibility and unity that existentialism focuses on.  The Dave Matthews Band, seemed and still do to me like an existentialist band.

     In an article written by Chris Schmarr on Dave Matthews' philosophy as evidenced by his history and lyrics, his interviews and what folks have come to call "Dave speak", he makes constant reference to things that make us all human, and Schmarr is keen to note many of the aspects of Dave's performances, as well as facets of his biography that resemble very closely themes in existential philosophy.  A passage from the article by Chris Schmarr that I think best captures the theme of The Dave Matthews Band's philosophy is this:

At one point or another in our lives we begin to question our self-worth and purpose in life. Why are we here? Existentialism is described as an area of philosophy that is concerned with the meaning of human existence (Friedman, 2009, p. 294). Dave Matthews struggles with this issue on a constant basis and it can be seen in his lyrics. Existential philosophers place the responsibility of personality squarely on the individual. How an individual deals with love, ethics, anxiety, triumph, and death is completely up to that individual (Friedman, 2009, p. 320).

Where Schmarr cites Friedman:
Friedman, H. S. & Schustack, M. W. (2009). Personality: Classic theories and modern research (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.      As odd as it may seem, I think that in the Dave Speak video, the decision on how best to poop in the ocean is a great example of personal responsibility and is made even better with the reference to the notion that we pollute the oceans terribly with our waste as a nation or society, but the one waste that is natural to an ocean, one that might actually be good for it, our individual pooping in an immense body of water, is something that we do not generally do for the construct of a social norm.   
     What made things very real for me was when I first heard the song, “Typical Situation” and Dave describes various things about nature and in our human world, things that I had taken for granted as existing.  Things that might not seem to have much bearing on the meaning of our existence. He juxtaposes these things with the social construct of socially keeping in line for fear of reprimand.  The idea of social conformity, for me, was and still is very troublesome.  I had been confronted with it while pledging a fraternity, which I have to say, in my opinion, is about the most useless process as it stands, but that is a topic for a vastly different blog.  Conforming is not something that I do unless I have very good justifications for doing so.  This practice causes me problems socially, but it keeps me satisfied.
     The song goes a little something like this: "Why are you different?  Why are you that way?  If you don't get in line we'll lock you away."   For me this can be taken as the one fellow standing out of line, not in line with the rules, against the conformity of all the human companions standing in line, following the rules.  Dave also says in that song, "Everybody's different.  Everybody's free.  Keep the big door open -- everyone will come around."  If one takes those two lines along with another and it follows this way: "It's a typical situation in these typical times.  Too many choices.  We can't do a thing about it; too many choices."

     I suppose the overarching theme here between existentialism and DMB is that both are concerned with the choices that we are faced with in our existence.  Numerous, overwhelming.  So many choices.  And another thing, if the final line, "It all comes down to nothing," has any bearing on this connection, then it is parallel to the despair one feels when one has the foundation of their identity stripped from themselves.  Perhaps it is the center of nihilist philosophy, where there is no meaning and no point in rules and institutions.  This is the nothingness that we find ourselves in, the absurdity that is the world through the eyes of an existentialist. The existentialists believe that there is no meaning in the world apart from what we assign to the world.  This reduces humans apart from their institutions and social groups, reduces them down to individuals, as Kierkegaard would have it, that are tasked with living life defined by themselves and understood on their own terms.
     But all this loneliness is not where it all stops. We don't just try to annihilate it all. It is not as Ivan Karamazov would say, that everything is permissible in the absence of God.
     Sartre and, for all intensive purposes, Dave are both flavors of atheists.  Sartre is a hypothetical atheist and Dave is just Dave (its a long interview, but I think that it is well worth it.  If you wish not to listen to it all, he says that if God is even out there, there is not conceivable reason that God would give a damn about a little human).  Responsibility comes full circle when existentialists claim that the value of a person is not given until they are dead.  We are the sum of our actions.  And for Dave, much of his concern comes from his existential angst toward the state of the humanity and the world.  He is deeply troubled by the things that we are doing to each other and to our planet.  Songs like Don't Drink the Water or Eh Hee (or Eh Hee for those of you that like the live stuff) where there is a strong urgency towards guilt and responsibility and the recognition of these things, one can see the concern Dave has for how we treat each other and how we act as humans.  The Dreaming Tree or Gaucho one can see the concern for our actions on how we treat the planet.  He is genuinely concerned with loving our fellow humans, on the grounds that we have nothing but ourselves.  We owe it to each other and our children after us to think about how we treat each other and the consequences of our decisions.
 

     I guess that the greatest thing that I have come to take away from my melting Existentialism and the Dave Matthews Band together is that I am just as screwed as everyone else.  And that we are all in this together, God or not.  I have suffered my own trials in my life and almost every time I had help from another person or persons along the way.  It would be a sin for me not to help a person in need.  That is the most important part of being human, aside from reproducing.  Loving, and it’s the part that I think is too often forgone.