I take my job as a rock star seriously. I have twelve fans, and I know them all by name. They have stuck by me for five decades in my Quixotic campaign to break into the music industry. I came closest in 1974 when I was mistakenly hired for a pair of Dylan sessions; apologies to all the better guitar players out there.
The press came calling, doors opened and before I knew it I was back to work on my railroad job switching boxcars at the Sara Lee plant somewhere in Iowa. It was cold and snowy. My hair caught fire from a flare I lit to signal the engineer a half mile away.
This was the life I had chosen, yet I never stopped trying to record something catchy. It has never happened for me yet, though I still think, dream and breathe in ill-fitting rhymes. I co-authored a book that did better than any song I ever wrote. Musicians seem to like it, except guitar players. These days people know my name everywhere I go, but they never seem to know why.
And so at 71 I find myself obsessed with the notion of creating something my new fans will stream and shout from the media mountaintops; a million-seller to rationalize for an expensive lifelong hobby.
I have quit trying to be catchy. This one will be known by my twelve loyal fans as the quiet album. You can barely hear it without expensive noise-cancelling, wireless, waterproof earphones and a portable subwoofer available on MySpace. Quiet is the new loud.