Dear Jessica Brennan,
I remember talking to a record executive once who told me that before they would consider a song for release it must pass the Campfire Test. What’s that? It simply means, that beyond all the amazing production elements and bells and whistles that a song can offer, in the end, to make a hit, you must be able to sit around a campfire and sing it.
Try it. “We Are the Champions”, “Finesse”, “Open Arms”, “Perfect Symphony” “Let it Be”. Most of the songs that will stand the test of time, can pass the campfire test.
Think of Justin Timberlake’s, “Can’t Stop the Feeling” – a production masterpiece in many ways – yet even with all those amazing additions to the tracks removed, the song is still a solid song.
So I got to thinking, as I do, I wonder if there is an equivalent in life. Just as the song, even when stripped down, must have all the elements of solid musical integrity, so must a decision. After all the spin and politics have been removed, integrity must remain or you’ve made the wrong choice.
Friendships have to pass the campfire test too. Fair weather friends or friendships that are based on only partying or some other narrow mutual interest can, when exposed end up being flimsy. When things go really wrong, who do you call? Those are the friendships with legs. They pass the campfire test.
The truth is a great example of something that always passes the campfire test. We have seen it historically. “I am not a crook”. He was still a crook. “I have never doped”. He had. The truth didn’t change just because someone decorated it with a magnificent lie.
The truth isn’t represented by an era. It still remains in every choice we make and word we say whether we admit it or not – what happened happened, what was said was said. Even a lie, carries the truth, because the truth is, you told a lie. The truth, when all the production has died down, can stand on its own legs. It needs no blessing from the trendspotters. It always passes the campfire test.
Again, as with most things, I hold a simple view Dear Jessica. Remove the glitz and strip life down to what’s left and see what has legs. Look past what people have embellished, turn off the flashing lights and the laugh track. Is the joke really funny? Is there a cake worth eating under that icing, a story worth believing, or a song worth building a campfire for?
Kumbaya.
Love Mum xo
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