Over the last six weeks or so, I’ve started multiple newsletters and left the documents languishing in limbo. Work has ramped up, and very exciting things are on the horizon, but serious things happening in real life have been taking precedence in recent weeks. I feel like I’ve been running on empty since the start of the year.
I don’t think I’m alone in feeling this way. Outwardly, most people seem to be holding it together—but in private and offline, it’s a different story. So many people I know are tired. So many people have had it. Depleted emotional reserves, a lack of physical energy—the works.
I’ve started to feel better, and I think it’s no coincidence it came when I decided to shift priorities and set better boundaries. This is easier said than done, of course. As a writer and journalist, you work at odd hours, conduct interviews at the convenience of other people, and often need to be flexible or deal with impossibly tight deadlines. If one or more of these things can’t happen, then you might miss out on an assignment or not be considered in the future. It can feel like a luxury to call your own shots and design a schedule that fits into a balanced life.
Protecting your time and energy can often be emotionally challenging. You don’t want to disappoint people, even if you know you need a break. I’ve experienced people get angry at me if I say no to things. Which stings!
Writer Elissa Altman recently wrote about deciding to step away from obligations on a Sunday—and what happened next:
And there, in my inbox, were the six original emails, followed by two more, checking to see if I’d gotten the ones they’d sent (Please confirm), and then, two more follow ups from two of the other senders. In total: ten emails sent with importance, four of them follow-ups. When I didn’t respond — my intention was to take Sunday off from screens and I’d told them this — they became insistent; their tone changed; at least two of them were actually angry that I was not available to discuss with them the thing they were writing to me about at that very moment (which could have waited until Tuesday).
***
I’m upfront now about the boundaries I set: if I do not intend to work on a weekend day, I say so. And what I’ve discovered is this: people don’t like it. If you’ve set a boundary, people will often go out of their way to either ignore it completely, or poke at it to see how far they can push before you cave, because: you always cave. Those are the rules.
Until you change them.
In my mind, it relates to the concept of “The show must go on!” For musicians, COVID-19 proved that, no, the show couldn’t go on—at least in the form we were used to. Shows were live streams from makeshift home performance spaces or empty recording studios or distanced gigs. It felt fun to keep shows going virtually, safely. Like we were all on an uncharted adventure trip together.
Today, despite the ongoing pandemic, the show is going on—at least going by the packed schedule of tours and concerts in 2023. But it’s clear that the show isn’t going on for everybody.
Fall Out Boy guitarist Joe Trohman stepped away from the band to focus on his mental health. "Neil Young once howled that it's better to burn out than to fade away,” he wrote. “But I can tell you unequivocally that burning out is dreadful.” Dave Navarro hasn’t been part of Jane’s Addiction’s recent tours due to long COVID. Countless acts, including Kenny Loggins and Foreigner, announced farewell tours. Ozzy Osbourne retired from the road due to his health.
And Santigold canceled her fall 2022 tour dates and laid bare the challenges of being a touring musician:
“After sitting idle for the past couple years, [musicians] rushed back out immediately when it was deemed safe to do shows. We were met with the height of inflation, many of our tried-and-true venues unavailable due to a flooded market of artists trying to book shows in the same cities, and positive [Covid] test results constantly halting schedules, with devastating financial consequences. All of that, on top of the already-tapped mental, spiritual, physical, and emotional resources of just having made it through the past few years. Some of us are finding ourselves simply unable to make it work.”
Santigold zeroes in on so much of what we’re grappling with now. The last few challenging years exposed how precarious many things really are. It’s like having a little chip in your car windshield suddenly spidering out and cracking the entire glass.
As a result—as Santigold so succinctly put it in in a separate Variety interview—who gets to keep making art?
“It’s the relentless expectations of this industry, where you have to constantly put out music, you have to constantly be in front of the people, making TikToks and engaging on social media, you’re supposed to be a marketing genius, you have to be constantly accessible — instead of making art!” she told
“I didn’t sign up for that. If art is becoming the side note, then maybe this isn’t what I need to be doing.”
The parallels between what she describes and the layoff-gutted media environment are impossible to miss.
Even those who are making it work—the biggest bands in the world, the ones who are financially comfortable and have a huge infrastructure around them to keep things going—are facing challenges.
Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band kicked off their tour the first week of February and have powered through without canceling shows despite multiple members catching COVID, culminating in saxophonist Eddie Mannion taking Jake Clemons’ place the other night in Austin. No doubt the criticism would’ve been off-the-charts had Springsteen canceled any shows. (And, of course, the financial and contractual complexities and sheer logistics of even postponing a show are massive.) Luckily, the E Street Band is adept at chugging along and rolling with the punches, since the (literal) Boss mixes things up.
During the Super Bowl, U2 confirmed the long-standing rumors of Las Vegas shows (not a residency, as Variety notes) at a new venue called the MSG Sphere: a concert experience celebrating Achtung Baby. However, this excitement came with a caveat: The shows would be taking place without founding member Larry Mullen Jr., as the drummer will reportedly be recuperating from much-needed surgery this year.
It remains to be seen how temporary drummer Bram van den Berg will fit in with the band—and talk about pressure, filling in for a founding member of U2!—but I tend to agree with the mixed feelings Caryn Rose expressed in her newsletter about the replacement.
Although much of the focus lately has been on Bono because of his memoir, U2 have always positioned themselves as a unified front. In fact, they’re one of the few bands that have kept the same lineup since the very beginning. And they started in Larry’s kitchen! They wouldn’t exist without the drummer!
We’re used to classic rock and hair metal bands swapping members in and out like they’re trying on and discarding outfits before a big night out. In the case of many of these acts, the songs are what endure anyway. Most people who aren’t super-fans couldn’t name the second guitarist of a one-hit Headbanger’s Ball wonder—and the proliferation of cover and tribute bands have created even more distance between songs and their creators. (To be clear, we’re not talking about, say, the Rolling Stones, who has Steve Jordan on drums after the death of Charlie Watts, per Charlie’s blessing. They’re on another plane entirely and, besides, already dealt with lineup changes years ago.)
But U2 is different. They’re anchors; they’re pillars; they’re like sturdy, waterproofed brick foundations. When stalwarts like them have musicians need to step away, it’s sobering and disorienting. Larry isn’t just any drummer; he’s a beloved part of the lineup. His temporary absence is a stark reminder of the relentless pressure to keep going forward, no matter what.
Now, of course, U2 shows of this size have likely been in the works for years; canceling or postponing probably wasn’t an option. But it’s also remarkably brave for Larry to put himself first and take a break. All of the musicians noted above are brave for putting their needs first.
We all push ourselves forward and keep powering through hard times and difficult moments, because that’s what we’re taught to do—that there’s honor and valor in facing obstacles head on and overcoming hard things.
And, yes, that’s all true—to a point. At some point, you have to say, “No more!” You have to put the brakes on, shut down the proverbial machine, and tend to your own physical needs and emotions before anything else.