Drive
“Smack, crack, bushwhacked; Tie another one to your racks, baby; Hey kids, rock and roll; Nobody tells you where to go, baby” As opening lines to songs go - these are well up there for me. Super memorable and distinctive - but at the same time extremely cryptic and open to interpretation. What do they mean? What are they referring to? That is one of the sheer beauties of music - your interpretation and how it relates to you is totally personal. Obviously some songs are clearly about something specific - but even then your own experiences and interpretations make them an individual experience. Songs like Drive, by R.E.M. become even more personal. You can’t really listen to these lyrics and have a complete understanding as to what the song is about. If you look back over interviews with the band members - even they cannot agree on the message the song is delivering. I love that. I love music that triggers my emotions or stirs up thoughts. That I can relate to without fully understanding why. Music that becomes distinctive for some reason and wraps itself around you in a way that almost understands you. That is what Drive does to me.
I have tried to get to the bottom of what this song means to me. It is one that when it comes on the radio it makes me stop. It takes me to periods of my life. It creates moments of stillness and calm. Like it is checking up on me. I know that sounds weird but I can’t really explain it better than that. Once I have heard it once, I have to listen to it again multiple times. I think it is like a pill that calms me. It also comes across to me as a piece of music that doesn’t quite have a complete identity. It never seems to fully break out into a finished article - it seems like it is broken into segments and they haven’t quite been knitted together fully. It reminds me of a fire that slowly burns but never ignites into big flames. It is a song with an identity crisis. It’s loud, quiet, fast, slow and everything in between - without ever being any of them. Which I absolutely love.
That element of uncertainty that I hear the song having it about itself is probably where I feel a link. Never being quite sure what it is. Yet it still goes on to be something incredible. It may not have a direct identity (to me anyway) but it is still a very profound and memorable piece of work. When this came out, in 1992, I would have been 16. Right in the midst of an identity crisis that so many of us feel in our teenage years - going through school, trying to fit in and be someone. Not knowing who we are. Not knowing where we fit. What makes us who we are. Desperate for some validation and recognition. Avoiding getting the wrong type of attention from the cool / tough / accepted kids. Just scraping by. I know at that age I had, like many of us, zero confidence in myself. The only redeeming features I had were my footballing ability and being able to make people laugh. And music. I could hide behind all of those quite nicely. Football would take me to other environments - which presented its own challenges - but it was a common language at least. Being the class idiot only gets you so far - and music at that age can be divisive. So I kept my head down and just plodded through. I have said before, that school is such a tough experience to get through at that age. The school system does not help. You’re judged as a success based on your ability to learn. You’re judged by your peers based on your looks, how many friends you have, what you wear and what you are into. You are picked up and dropped by friends and love interests at the drop of a hat. Peoples insecurities mean you’re in the group one day or out the group the next. Everyone is fighting their own battles. Their own insecurities. Others get caught in the firing line. It can be such a brutal and confusing experience. There are lots of positives that come out of it but it is such a hard place to be in our formative years.
When I reflect on those challenges - it becomes clear to me that they don’t actually go away. What changed for me, and continues to do so, is my handling of it. I still feel a lot of what I felt in school. I don’t know where I fit. I don’t know what I bring to situations. I am hugely insecure about how I look (with good reason) and I worry that I am not a person who contributes enough to others. Those feelings are still there. But - and this is a huge but - they are very much tempered. They are way more controlled than they used to be.
It has taken a hell of a lot of work with friends, coaches, reading and courses but I am so much more in control of them. I think that is the huge difference between me now - and me at school. At school those feelings consumed me. Every single day. Morning, noon and night. I couldn’t see a way out of them. Now - they are probably less than 5% of my daily thoughts. Still more than I would like - but that is huge progress. Many things helped me get there but it is the realisation that all the elements you worry about at school don’t really mean anything that help release the pressure.
There are many turning points - that help you move forward. My first big turning point came after I finished school and uni. I went to work as a holiday rep as soon as I finished my degree. Literally days after my last day, I was on a plane heading out to Mallorca to do a summer season. I had zero confidence in myself. Both as a person and physically. I really didn’t like myself. I had no idea how this was going to go. After a rough first day when some of my fears came true and slapped me in the face it started to improve. 7 months later I was a completely different person. I had so much confidence - I could walk into any room and own it. It helped set up my entire career. It was like someone had understood me for the first time and helped unlock myself. And that is true. Someone did help do that. I didn’t know that people could do that to you. He is still my best friend to this day. What he did for me is priceless - and I will always be grateful to him. He understood me, helped me come out my shell and drove me forward. Such a top man - even if he is a Sheffield United fan.
The point here though - is it was a catalyst for me - to blow away the negativity I was carrying around about myself. I was allowing my insecurities to manifest themselves in reality. I was so guarded. I wouldn’t let myself go in any way for fear of being judged and not accepted. Friendships came and went. Girlfriends came and went. Nothing stuck. My brain was running my life. More to the point, the bad behaviour of my brain was controlling - and winning.
As life goes on - with its added complexities - and a career develops there is so much room for all of these bad behaviours. They were so prevalent through so much of my life. The key is to not go back. Not regress. Make sure steps forward are being taken. It took a long time for me to get the help I needed. Even though I had advanced from my time at school - I needed other tools to help me confront the more challenging of those feelings - in environments that were far more daunting and serious. If you had told me all those years ago that it would become second nature for me to present to a room full of senior execs at somewhere like Microsoft, I would have looked at you like you were insane. If you had told me I would be on a senior leadership team helping grow an agency into a multi million pound company - same response. If you’d had told me I would start my own company - again - no way. But I have done all these things. I keep driving forward. Even with those feelings sticking around. They are like some viruses. They stay in your body forever, dormant, until there is a trigger. When they are triggered - that is when I turn to the tools I use. The coaching I have had. The small amount of exposure I have had to how the brain functions via neuroscience (something I want to do more of - and I would encourage anyone to look into it). Books. Close friends. And music. They are my tools. I am lucky that I have found a few people that really understand me and are very close to me. What I mean by understand me, is that they know my triggers. They know when I am spiralling. They see the signs. They know what to ask and that they need to talk to me. I am incredibly lucky. The most important part is that I have the desire to improve - to keep on top of those negatives. At various times in my life I have given into them and let them swim over me - but that is not happening now.
I think the message I am trying to put out to anyone who feels what I have described (or at least tried to), is that what you feel is normal. These feelings may be ever present through your life. What changes is the impact they have on you and how you control them. Not letting them carry you away and taking you to dark places.
The key is staying fact based. Don’t read into anything too much. Don’t hypothesise. Deal with the facts. Feel what you feel. Process it. But don’t let it control you. Don’t let them stop you believing in yourself - don’t let them change who you are. Be authentic. Be you. Be strong. As R.EM. themselves say “Hey kids, where are you? Nobody tells you what to do, baby”
Thanks for reading
JT
XXX