“You think when you wake up in the mornin yesterday don't count. But yesterday is all that does count. What else is there? Your life is made out of the days it’s made out of. Nothin else.” — Cormac McCarthy, No Country For Old Men
I became a full-time professional musician on January 1st, 2000. I hadn’t reached any income benchmark. I had no manager, record deal, degree, or training. I was 30 years old and couldn’t keep a girlfriend or a job. Y2K seemed like the perfect window to throw my burning life through. For the next 23 years, I cold-called, emailed, mailed, shook hands, drove, flew, loaded, unloaded, wrote, recorded, and sold things. I never had a hit or made any mailbox money. I just worked really hard, driven by the flames of oblivion.
My Danish friends in The Sentimentals said they loved working with American artists because they had a lot of drive, and maybe the lack of art subsidies in the US encourages that. I landed a couple of small grants in my career, but honestly, I could’ve put the time I spent writing applications into playing gigs and made the same money. Not only did I support myself and my family, I took 2/3 of every dollar I made and put it in hotels, restaurants, gas stations, rental cars, airlines, conferences, printing, photography, videography, audio engineering, musical instruments and repairs, internet services, credit card fees, union dues, professional organization fees, florists, haberdasheries, publicists, agents — I was a one-man economic engine. As my friend Corin Raymond said, “If I wanted to stop working so hard, I’d get a job.”
It’s January 1st, 2024. This will be my first semester as a full-time student. I’m taking Chemistry, Calculus, Java, and Writing in the Disciplines.
Do you know what our government subsidizes — and generously? College. After 23 years of working my ass off as an independent artist, I’m finally gonna eat that sweet government cheese. My classes, my books, and my groceries are paid for. I still have to pay my living expenses, which apparently include a whole new wardrobe for my teenager once a month. Speaking of which, every Substack subscription in 2024 will feed a hungry child in North Carolina. I have one in mind.
I received a few messages this week asking me where to play, how to get your songs “out there,” and how to make money in the music business. This week. Because the artist’s hustle never stops.
In short, if I knew how to do it, I’d still be doing it. I have four albums left to put out, almost all of them complete, but it’ll cost me money to release them, and I don’t ever expect to make that money back.
But I’m not sad. College is just as exciting as when I started playing music professionally. It takes a tremendous amount of energy and focus. I have to find clever ways to get by with no money. I have to form new relationships constantly and grow them. Someday, I might even stop working so hard and get a job.
A new day began in the middle of the night. That doesn’t make any sense but, like everything else, we make it make sense. We decide what’s important to us and we mark it. I didn’t have to quit my last job on December 31st, 1999. It didn’t make sense to anyone else, but to me it meant everything. New millennium, new me.
When Max Planck invented quantum theory, he wasn’t thinking about the secrets of the universe, consciousness, or artificial superintelligence. He was working on a light bulb. He didn’t even think that energy was actually quantized; he thought it was a mathematical trick that made the equations work.
Maybe that’s how the seeming arbitrariness of days, months, and years works. Maybe we really did cross a line last night, and a new tooth in the cog of the universe turned and clicked, and a bell rang, and a baby angel was born.
I do know two measurements of time that are real — never and forever. That thing you’ve been wanting to do? If you never do it, you’ll never have done it forever.
Happy New Year. Your fan,
Jonathan Byrd.
Never and Forever