Issue 1: Don't Bother Me, I'm Thinking
By Medulla Vesuvius

Wesley Willis, the Sublime, and the Artistic Impulse

“Rock over London. Rock on, Chicago. Choosey moms choose JIF.”There are literally hundreds, maybe thousands of lines I could have chosen from the catalog of songs by Wesley Willis to start this little missive. But why not choose to begin with a typical Willis-ian ending?

Why not choose the unconventional route?

That question has been rattling around inside my cranium the last couple days as I’ve listened to Rush Hour, an album by Wesley Willis. For you see, the crux of the matter is as follows: Wesley’s music was anything but conventional.

Now, some of you might say, “Not so, Miguel. Wesley was nothing short of formulaic in his methods: ’start the keyboard accompaniment with the Intro button pushed, do a few lines of spoken-word verse and howl out the title of the song as the chorus, repeat as desired and leave room for an “instrumental” break.’”

But Darling, you forget this formula only makes sense once you’ve heard Willis before. Let’s look at the bigger picture, shall we? In relation to all music that came before and has since come along, Wesley’s still defies comparison. (I would go so far as to say that his music even frustrates those who would attempt any kind of theoretical criticism, but more on that later.)

Can you think of any other recording artists who so obviously couldn’t sing a melody and whose literary level was just above that of a fourth grader? Can you think of any other creative minds that couldn’t be bothered with the task of making their own musical lines, so instead they entrusted the task to the auto accompaniment feature of a chintzy keyboard? Of course not. Mind you, none of the previous has been a value judgment; rather it has been an intentional statement of facts, more or less. I feel that Wesley’s music transcends questions of “well, is it good music or bad music?”

I’m still not sure to what extent Willis’ schizophrenia affected his ability to analyze his creative output. Obviously it did affect his creative voice, but I can’t help but wonder what went through his head as he performed his music in front of small crowds of people in little dives across the country. Was he aware of the ironic response of some people? Did he notice the sly, smug smiles on some of the faces in his hipster audiences? I’m not sure how cognizant he was of the various appreciative schemes that people brought to his music.

And that’s exactly what fascinates me about the phenomenon of Wesley Willis- the depth of the gulf between artist and his audience. There is no such thing as technique or subtlety in his artistic world. There is mere expression, pure and simple. There is no attempt to speak for a generation like a folk artist. There is no attempt to tell the truth with three chords like a punk artist. There is no attempt to capture the common heartbeat of humanity like a pop musician. There are simply the creator’s thoughts and their release into the wild.

So, while many people approach music so that it will “speak to them,” or help them organize their own experience, they’ll find no such comfort with a song that says, “The vultures, the vultures ate my dead ass up.”

But in Wesley Willis’ music is one of the last vestiges of the individual artist who creates, consequences be damned. His life seems far removed from that of the monstrous music business. I doubt he ever had record companies pressuring him to write a hit single to sell albums. And I don’t imagine he ever felt the pressure to give audiences what they want.

Life did not smile upon Wesley, suffering from schizophrenia and finally dying of leukemia in 2003. He’s kind of like Job in the Bible. It’s ironic that his act of creation, using the little resources he had been given-a keyboard and no specified singing ability or musical knowledge- said a lot about the human condition and the lonely, self-directed search for the sublime.

In the music of Wesley Willis is one man’s attempt to transform the unsilence-able voices in his head into homemade grasps at speaking the unspeakable.