Dear John, I don’t love you, because I don’t know you. I sort of gave up on trying to figure out who you are because you’re becoming too much of a nuisance to comprehend and I’d rather not contribute to your ever-growing ego, if that's okay. What I see in you seems to have little to do with the person you seem to be, so I thought it necessary to explain why. For instance, three out of the four times I’ve seen you perform live, I’ve been perfectly content sitting in the lawn seats, because I don’t find it the least bit necessary to elbow others for a glimpse of your face. That’s just how it is.
I knew your music before I knew "you." I’m not much of a tabloid believer, and I don’t favor making assumptions about other people’s characters, but I can’t help but question if you’re one in the same. Most artists and writers use their words as their form of communication, their expression of their emotions, their experiences, and their personalities, to ultimately describe them. With that, I know your music, and the lyrical genius and poet behind the conceited façade you put out. I’ve spent the past five years getting to know the person who wrote your lyrics, and I’ve fallen pretty hard, for that side of you. But this self-centered, materialistic idle-life that you so wholeheartedly show off, not so much. Make sense? I guess it could.
I believe that it’s love when you realize that an entire song encompasses the entire extent of your current emotion, and when you can’t name a single favorite song by an artist, because they all matter. When it comes to your music, Continuum is my Chicken Soup for the Broken Heart. Try! is my motivation for pride. Room For Squares is my humble winter anthem. Heavier Things brightens my mood, and re-energizes my individuality. But if this means your songs can relate to anyone, I’d at least like to know for sure who I can give the credit to, your heart, or this “mainstream” to which you’re attempting to appeal?
For example, I was intrigued by “Who Says,” and some other songs from Battle Studies, because after all the person you have built yourself to be through your past albums, "Who Says" presents a completely opposite person, a genuinely vain and indifferent asshole. Even if you are an asshole, it would seem kind of odd for you to be able to own the previous songs you have written, the lyrics that bring clarity to the indescribable depths of an emotion, without drowning it out or sapping it up with clichés. Either that or you just have an extraordinarily eloquent, captivating and yeah, maybe even heart-melting imagination. If anything. But I just don’t see a parallel between your lifestyle and your lyrics. You must have a heart, but in real life you seem to be severely lacking.
Whether your records actually record a different you or not, I guess will remain a mystery, unless someday you decide to put effort into how you appeal personally to the public. I sincerely believe that you’ve never cared what people think of you, even now as image is ironically your strongest vice towards fame. I remember you as the guy in jeans who made funny facial expressions when he sang, the kid who just wanted to play guitar, the kid who just had words, that made sense to him, claiming “someday [he’d] fly, someday [he’d] soar, someday [he’d] be so damn much more,” knowing deep down that he was “bigger than [his] body [gave him] credit for.” But then you gained popularity, you actually noticed that you started succeeding, and it got to your head, I'm guessing sometime while you were "waiting on the world to change." Well guess what? You finally fit the stereotype of a rising musician.
I was hoping that you’d never really notice your fame, and that you’d somehow hold onto a small piece of your modesty, but like the rest of the world, I only saw you climb higher up the rungs of arrogance. I would probably defend your haughtiness as simply knowing yourself better than most people know themselves, a sort of extreme self-awareness or a state of content self-acknowledgment. But I can’t defend your offenses or your self-pity, your solitude or your indifference. Maybe you’ll never care that much what people think of you, even as you grow more and more arrogant, but I had hoped you’d at least have direction, and would not become this aimless, as a person, in your career.
There are a plethora of things of which I am unsure, but one thing I can safely swear is that your music is something that will remain timeless to me. Regardless of how you choose to live your life, regardless of how your outlook affects your appeal, regardless of what people say, and regardless of whether your lyrics even actually mean anything to you, you ought to know that what you produce means more to me than who you are and what you do, and perhaps to a good majority of your faithful “fans.” I appreciate having a musical outlet for my emotions, and for having found some comfort in being able to relate to your songs. I don’t love you. But thank you for the soundtrack you’ve written, because my life would be kind of silent without it.
[unsent] photos: google.com/imghp