Favorite Musical Book Quotes?

I share with you a musical quote from the book Beyond the Robot:  The Life and Work of Colin Wilson by Gary Lachman who himself was a founding member of the rock group Blondie.  The book is a biography of Colin Wilson, the author of The New Existentialism - a book I previously quoted above, as well as other famous titles such as The Outsider.

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          The society of free spirits gratuitously helping each other had yet to appear and Wilson had to find another job.  This time it was as a hospital porter in Fulham.  He received patients, wheeled them around on stretchers, fetched their meals, took dead patients to the mortuary, and emptied rubbish bins.  He was given a tiny cubicle to sleep in and meals.  Privacy was at a minimum.  For the first few weeks, Wilson was still speaking anarchically--representing the syndicalist workers--and he kept their soapbox with him at work, bicycling to Hyde Park Corner with it strapped to his back.  The work wasn't hard and the pay was decent but the long, empty hours, waiting to receive a patient, were demoralizing.  Cards, tea breaks, and football matches on the radio filled the void.  The stagnant atmosphere bred sexual chitchat; the porters reeled off exaggerated accounts of their success or drooled over pornography.  Death, too, was nearby.  Once Wilson saw the body of a young woman after the postmortem.  He had seen her alive a few days earlier; now her brains and intestines lying on the slab seemed to deny that humanity had any importance in the scheme of things.  He asked himself what seems a naive question, but one that would play an important part in his philosophy to come:  why do we die?  Are we so unimportant to nature?  Or do we, as Shaw believed, die because we are too lazy to make life worth living?

          The negation symbolized by the young woman's body was offset by a "near mystical experience."  Lying on his bed, he was listening to the "Liebestod" from Wagner's opera Tristan and Isolde on the radio.  For Wilson music ranks with sex and poetry as a reliable means of inducing what he would later call "the other mode of consciousness," and he would go on to write a book about it.  At the time he was fascinated with the life of the dancer Nijinsky--he would feature in both The Outsider and The Ritual in the Dark--and when the spirit grabbed him Wilson would improvise a dance to whatever music he was listening to.  He did so then.  He stood up and in his cubicle began to make slow movements with his arms.  He tensed his muscles and as the music reached a climax "it seemed to penetrate the depths of my being."  For a brief moment he was "above time" and could look down upon life from a height.  He had glimpsed some of mankind's evolutionary possibilities.  Sheer concentration, an effort of will, he believed, had induced the "timeless moment," and indicated that the relentless flow of time, from life to death, could be halted.

          Time may have stopped for a moment, but the relentless need to write remained ...

On 12/23/2025 at 6:33 PM, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

I share with you a musical quote from the book Beyond the Robot:  The Life and Work of Colin Wilson by Gary Lachman who himself was a founding member of the rock group Blondie.  The book is a biography of Colin Wilson, the author of The New Existentialism - a book I previously quoted above, as well as other famous titles such as The Outsider.

 

 

Ha, I read parts of Wilson’s books a while back and this account sounds very “Wilson” indeed, lol.

On 2/28/2024 at 12:06 PM, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

LoL - I looked on my secret bookshelf in my closet and I realized that I have some great musical books in there that not even *I* have read!

I never read books on my shelf lol!!!

I come to you with yet another quote from Gary Lachman's "Beyond the Robot:  The Life and Work of Colin Wilson".  There is a pertinent insight about creative artists at the end of the quote in this chapter which has to do with peak experiences.

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          But there was one part of Maslow's findings that Wilson questioned.  Maslow believed that peaks could not be induced at will.  They were a by-product of an optimistic, purposeful way of life.  But you couldn't make one happen, he thought, just as you can't make yourself be happy.  Yet Maslow had written about how, when he spoke to his students about peak experiences and asked them to think about any they had had, they suddenly started having them, simply by remembering earlier ones and focusing their attention on them.  It seemed that Maslow had missed this point.  It would play a central part in the philosophy of consciousness Wilson was developing.  It seemed that the human mind had the ability to alter itself, through thought and imagination alone.

          Around the same time as Wilson absorbing Maslow's ideas, the work of another thinker came to his attention.  I've already mentioned Robert Ardrey.  Wilson had bought a copy of Ardrey's African Genesis for Joy, thinking she would like it.  When Wilson read it too he was struck by Ardrey's thesis.  Ardrey argued that human beings emerged from their simian ancestors on the African savannahs some two million years ago, and that the transition came about because by learning to walk upright they left their hands free to use weapons--a theme Stanley Kubrick employed in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey.

          This suggested that humanity came into existence through an "evolutionary leap," a sudden advance rather than a slow, cumulative process.  The idea of such a leap had been on Wilson's mind for some time, ever since he contemplated the nineteenth-century Romantics who made up many of his Outsiders.  Sometime in the late eighteenth century, a kind of "imagination explosion" took place in the West, which Wilson later attributed to the rise of the modern novel.  Writers, poets, musicians, and artists found themselves experiencing strange states of a godlike ecstasy, unlike anything that had come before.  In Maslow's terms the Romantics experienced profound peak experiences and it was precisely their fall "back to earth" that led many to alcoholism, drug addiction, or suicide.  The Romantics, Wilson felt, were too weak and undisciplined to bridge the gap; they couldn't maintain the forward drive that created the conditions for peaks.  They succumbed to self-pity and despair, believing they were stranded in a drab, dreary world. The contrast between their visionary states and the "triviality of everydayness" defeated them.  But perhaps they were the first sign of a change in human consciousness, or a growing hunger for the kind of inner freedom that H. G. Wells had demanded.  Perhaps, like Ardrey's early humans, humanity for the past century or so was undergoing an evolutionary shift.

. . .

          Yet it was Ardrey's ideas about dominance that really excited Wilson.  Ardrey told him that precisely 5 percent of all animal groups, including humans, was dominant.  This fact had been uncovered during the Korean War, when it was revealed that surprisingly few Americans escaped from North Korean prison camps.  This happened because their Chinese captors first observed the prisoners to determine which were dominant, that is, which were motivated, showed initiative, and displayed other leadership qualities.  They isolated these under heavy guard and left the rest relatively unguarded.  Without the "troublemakers" the others were easily controlled; they were passive and quickly accepted their situation.  The number of "dangerous" prisoners was always the same:  5 percent.

. . .

          This insight into dominance seemed to offer Wilson a clue about his Outsiders.  He had pointed out that the Outsider is not necessarily a frustrated man of genius (although he later modified this view).  But he now recognized that he or she was certainly a frustrated member of the dominant 5 percent.  Wilson suggested that in early times, with a smaller population, a dominant character could more easily rise to his natural level in society.  Today it is less easy.  There are many more people, which means many more dominant individuals, and the competition is greater.  Many dominant individuals do not get the chance to express their dominance naturally.  This results in an accumulation of frustrated energies and a resentment toward the society that frustrates them.  Shaw said, "All men are in a false position in society until they have realized their possibilities and imposed them on their neighbours."  But Shaw also realized that this is not always easy.  "The finding of one's place," he admitted, "may be made very puzzling by the fact that there is no place in ordinary society for the extraordinary individual."

           This is something the Outsider knows firsthand.  And if a dominant individual is frustrated for too long, he may rebel, and act out his dominance criminally.  Wilson points out that in tests done with rats this is exactly what happened.  In overcrowded conditions, a highly dominant or "king" rat took over a cage for himself and his harem.  All the other rats were jammed into another cage.  Among these were other, slightly less dominant rats, and they took to expressing their dominance in "criminal" ways.  They raped other rats, ate babies, and attacked their less dominant fellows.  Dominant humans in similar conditions--slums--with no positive venue for their dominance, often react in much the same way.

          Yet not every member of the dominant 5 percent is an Outsider.  Most do find their natural place in society.  Wilson points out that every store manager, drill sergeant, pop star, or sports figure is a member of the dominant 5 percent.  (Having worked in the rock and roll business for many years, I came across quite a few of them.)  Yet there is a further level of dominance that exceeds even these.  Members of the dominant 5 percent need other people to express their dominance.  An actor needs his audience, a pop star his fans, a CEO his vice chairmen, a dictator his masses.  Without other people, their dominance has no means of expression.  They are dependent on other people.  If they found themselves stranded on a desert island, their dominance would have nothing to do.

          This is not true of a small number of the population.  Wilson suggests that .005 percent of the population displays a very different kind of dominance, one that does not need other people.  If these people found themselves on a desert island, they would be amazed at their good fortune.  For them, creative work is an end in itself.  They are what Maslow calls "self-actualizers."  They are more interested in exploring and actualizing their own creative potential than in dominating others.  A philosopher, a scientist, a poet, a mystic, or a composer can express his or her dominance through the work itself.

Go forth and dominate the world with your creative "originative intellectual work"!

I have another musical quote from Gary Lachman's "Beyond the Robot:  The Life and Work of Colin Wilson".

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          While at Roanoke he hit upon another insight.  Wilson's mania for music continued and he accumulated stacks of records during his semester.  He disliked the paper sleeve that came with these and ordered a supply of polyethylene envelopes.  When they arrived he sat on the carpet with a row of fifty records, removed the paper sleeve, wiped the dust off the record, placed it in the polyethylene envelope, and put it back in the cardboard sleeve.  After a while it struck him that he was actually enjoying what most of us would consider a tedious job.  Why?  Wilson hated repetitive work.  Why was this so pleasurable?  He remembered a quote from Herman Hesse's The Journey to the East, in which the hero, who tends to the musical needs of a mystical League, remarks that "a long time devoted to small details exalts us and increases our strength."  Why should this be so?  What made an otherwise boring job a source of satisfaction for him?  What happens when we become so deeply absorbed in an activity that our consciousness focuses like a laser beam?  It was a step toward another breakthrough in the new Existentialism.

. . .

          Another insight that came to Wilson at Hollins concerned the strange behavior of the planarian worm.  In Ardrey's The Territorial Imperative Wilson read about a remarkable experiment involving planaria.  Planaria are very simple creatures:  they have no brain, no nervous system, no sexual organs.  Two scientists, Irving Rubinstein and Jay Boyd Best, were studying them and devised a way to test their learning ability.  They put the worms in a tube full of water that forked into a Y at the end.  Then they drained the water, which planaria need to live.  The worms went down the tube until they came to the fork.  One way was lighted and led to water; the other was dark and didn't.  Most of the worms soon learned to head down the lighted tube.  But as the scientists repeated the experiment several times for colleagues, they noticed something strange.  The planaria, who had solved the puzzle, started to take the wrong turn, or they would lie still and do nothing and eventually die.  It was as if they were saying, "Oh no, not this again," and preferred death to going through the same routine.  One scientist suggested that they were bored.  Without a brain or nervous system, this seemed unlikely, but the scientists decided to test it.  They made the choice more difficult.  Now the water was down either an unlighted tube made of rough plastic (which the worms could feel), or a lighted tube made of smooth plastic.  They took a fresh batch of worms and set them to work.  Because it was more difficult, only a third of the worms solved the problem, but this group would perform the experiment repeatedly without getting bored.  They never took the wrong turn or sulked, and headed down the right tube every time.

          The conclusion seemed to be that the first group did indeed get bored, but the second group cleared this hurdle by putting more effort into the test.  Twice as much, it seemed.  Doubling the effort prevented boredom.  This, Wilson saw, was why he got so much pleasure from the album sleeves:  he was putting more effort than was necessary into the task.  Our attitudes determine whether something is boring or not, a fact Wilson would support with an episode in Tom Sawyer.  Tom is asked to paint a fence but he gets his friends to do it--they even pay him to let them--by pretending to enjoy it.  His friends expect it to be fun, and the interest they put into it makes it so.  Like the planaria, they put effort into it and they don't get bored.  It was another important insight for the new Existentialism.  And it was in fact the "planaria effect" that provides the key to solving the problem of the black room in Wilson's novel.

. . .

          Wilson first wrote about the robot in an essay that appeared in Challenges of Humanistic Psychology, an anthology edited by the psychologist James Bugental, who founded the Journal of Humanistic Psychology with Maslow in 1961.  In "Existential Psychology:  A Novelist's Approach," Wilson wrote, "When I learned to type, I had to do it painfully and with much wear and tear.  But at a certain stage a miracle occurred, and this complicated operation was 'learned' by a useful robot that I conceal in my sub-conscious."  This robot, Wilson tells us, is very helpful.  He drives his car, speaks passable French, and "occasionally gives lectures at American universities."  The robot is very versatile; Wilson even jokes that he sometimes makes love to his wife.  The robot is a labor-saving device.  He takes over repetitive tasks so that we can focus our attention on other things.  Alfred North Whitehead knew about the robot when he said, "Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them."  If I had to think about how to type each time I wanted to, I could never think about what to type.  Once I've learned a skill, my robot takes care of the how, so I can focus on the what.  We all know the story of the ant asking the centipede how he can move so many legs.  The centipede says, "It's easy; I do it like this," and then finds himself unable to do it.  His conscious mind has interfered with an unconscious or subconscious process; in psychology this is called "hyper-reflection."  The same thing happens when we become self-conscious and start to bungle things we normally do easily.  We then are getting in the way of the robot.

          The robot is absolutely necessary.  But there is a problem.  "If I discover a new symphony that moves me deeply," Wilson writes, "or a poem or a painting, the robot insists on getting in on the act."  After a few times, the robot takes over, and he is listening to the symphony or reading the poem, not me.  We say it has become "familiar."  What does this mean?  Why should a Mozart symphony sound less beautiful or exciting after we've heard it several times?  After all, it hasn't changed.  We say we have "got used to it."  But what does this mean, other than that we have allowed the robot to classify it with repetitive tasks and, as T.E. Lawrence lamented, "become typical through thought"?  Making things typical is the robot's job; the problem is that he does this to things we don't want to be typical.

. . .

          Outsiders feel the effect of the robot more than others; hence their desire for "life more abundantly."  They are willing to take enormous risks in order to throw him off, to "cast the spectre into the lake," as William Blake says.  But living dangerously is most often counterproductive, as many of Wilson's Outsiders discovered.  The idea is neither to get rid of the robot nor to keep administering "shock treatments" so that we can be free of him for a moment.  These soon cease to work and fall victim to the law of diminishing returns, with greater shocks with less effect.  We need to understand how the robot works and why we developed him in the first place.  We need, that is, to develop a phenomenology of the robot.  And we can see that there are times when we and the robot work together.  A musician in top form can allow his robot full rein, while adding the creative nuances that make him a virtuoso.  This is what the philosopher Micheal Polanyi calls "attending from" rather than "attending to."  If a pianist attended to his fingers he would be in the same situation as the centipede.  He lets them do their work, which allows him to throw in spontaneous flashes of brilliance.  When Wilson felt a quiet joy at the repetitive task of cleaning his records, it was because he and his robot were cooperating.  And this happened because, as we've seen, Wilson put extra effort into the task, which means that he was more there, or "present," as we like to say today.

And if you've gotten this far, thanks for reading!