This issue, the Rock and Rules of folk legend DONOVAN are here to save you.
THE MISSION
Are there any rules to learn now to prepare you when you become an icon? I thought, nobody knows they will become an icon. The audience make you an icon and I thought, why? How? How do they make you an icon? Then it became clear. The reason why iconic status is given is because the work you are doing has created a new blend or a new genre or there is such a commitment in your work that you have become a spokesman. So here comes the mission: the icon that you could be, you can’t anticipate being, but there is a part of the icon that is already happening before he or she even makes a record. If you are an icon based on commitment, you already have a mission and you are going to be able to deal with that when you become an icon. You’re gonna be able to deal with it in the sense that you can say, “I’m doing what I want to do, I’m getting recognition for it and I’m pleased it’s happening.” It’s not a surprise. It’s what you want to do.
RIDICULE
If you think you’re gonna say something to the world or say something to your generation that is meaningful, and everybody around you is saying “Rubbish”, these ridicules actually strengthen the resolve and it’s only those that can overcome that and say, “I hear what you’re saying. You don’t believe in what I’m doing, but I believe in it” survive. If you say, “Yeah, they’re right. I’m rubbish. Maybe I should forget this. Maybe I should go back working in the factory.” Well, you ain’t gonna do that. If you really believe in it you’re gonna keep going. My own ridicule came really early when I was compared with Bob Dylan, which is a very surface comparison. But they laughed at him when he arrived in New York. So should Bob have just turned around and said, “Oh, I’m going back to Minnesota. Maybe I should go back to college and get a real job”? The future icon should beware of ridicule very early but don’t take a blind bit of notice.
CHARACTER
The element of character determines how you actually deal with when you become successful. There’s Mark Knopfler and his brother, David. He walked away at one point. He said, “I can’t be bothered with this.” Too big. So character is very important. Are you ready for this? Do you wanna do this? Is this really stressful? I mean, we can come down a few notches from mission levels to ‘I don’t really like being screamed at or chased by girls with scissors for a lock of my hair’. There’s all these things in bands that maybe is okay to do at weekends but you don’t really want to make your life. That attitude still lingers in the musician. He doesn’t actually want to leave society. He doesn’t feel he’s an entertainer with any mission or with any total commitment.
BEST FRIEND
To really survive, they call them ‘roadies’, but the real best-friend syndrome is before you actually get involved in the business, if you have a pal and you’re kind of like a duo; you kind of look after each other. Gypsy Dave was that for me. Gypsy’s looking out, and we’re all looking out for each other before it happens, then when you get success, across that crowded room with lots of drugs and substance abuse and lots of other things going on, somebody will be looking out for you and you’re looking out for them. Especially if one of you is going to be presented as the iconic figure, then there’s got to be somebody looking over your shoulder and saying, “Is this okay? Shall we get out of here?”
DRUGS
Anything that makes you feel good sounds good, but anything that makes you feel bad when you ain’t got it is no good. ‘Oh, heroin is great,’ a junkie will tell you. You feel great when you’ve got it, but you feel bad when you ain’t. Does that make sense? It doesn’t make any sense at all. In actual fact when you don’t have it you feel terrible? Oh great, that’s called addiction, isn’t it? Right, so, big lesson: comedown. If you’re gonna do anything – drink or substances or anything – watch the hard ones. Don’t go anywhere near them for Christ’s sake. If you do, it’s probably been a mistake. Youprobably didn’t know what it was, because if you did know what it was, then you would have made a decision that you would rather feel bad when you ain’t got just to feel good when you’ve got. That’s not a deal. That deal doesn’t exist. Don’t do that deal. That deal’s nothing.
THE INNER WORLD
What is the tool the arts bring to us? Introspection is the tool. What is introspection? Contemplation. What does contemplation lead to? The inner world. What is the inner world? Why is music invisible? The Chinese speak of it in the ancient Book of Changes that music is the invisible sound, which releases the obscure emotions of the heart. If in the year 2060 we’re still here and the stupidity and the greed and the hypocrisy and the ugliness and the chaos and the spoiling of the planet is at its extreme, what would be the saviour? Well, it would have to be introspection, contemplation, meditation, yoga; somehow to actually look at this situation from an inner space. There wouldn’t be another prophet like a Jesus or a Buddha, but actually an understanding that there’s this inner world.
ADULATION
Why does somebody give you adulation? You could say, “Actually they’re not seeing me. They’re seeing the icon image. They’re seeing the elevated consciousness that I’m presenting.” So when somebody is giving you kudos for influencing their life, for bringing a change to them, it wasn’t easy for me to actually say that they were actually praising me. I couldn’t say that. I always understood that what they were actually praising is the healing they felt in listening or understanding something in a song. This is said about healers, by the way. Once the person says, “Thank you, you’ve healed me”, the true healer would say, “No, you healed yourself. I only held up the mirror to the healing powers you have. Don’t confuse me with you. You saw something and you did it.” But they say, “No, it was you. We’re going to build a statue to you. It’s going to be ten feet high and bronze and you’re going to have your guitar.” Yeah right. It wasn’t me. I actually provided a service, so I don’t need to be told that I did it.
