You Can Do Anything – What You Were Born to Do

You Can Do Anything by Will Marre

For 30 years I have helped people get clear on their life’s purpose and finding what they were born to do.  I have discovered that it is found at the intersection of people’s Design and Desire.  What are you talented at and what are you passionate about.  (Save the World and Still Be Home for Dinner, Sept. 2009) Recently I’ve come across a stream of literature that states that talent alone is overrated.  It seems that consistent, focused practice develops our latent talents to excel at unexpected things in unexpected ways.  This brings me to Joe Cocker.

For some reason, I’ve always wanted to see Joe Cocker sing live.  I have this mental list of singers and groups I want to hear in person before I have to be pushed into a concert in a wheel chair.  During my college days I saw the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Elton John, the Beach Boys, Creedence and many more.  I was even a paid security guard at a Canned Heat concert in 1968 at the Santa Monica Civic.  In my boomer years I’ve managed to see the Eagles, Paul McCartney, Sting and lots of others.  But ever since I heard Joe Cocker’s rendition of “With a Little Help From My Friends” from the 1969 Woodstock Concert, I’ve wanted to hear this weirdly unique rocker for myself.

I was delighted to discover he was coming to Humphries in San Diego in June.  My wife wasn’t.  Not at all.  Not even a little bit.  “Joe Cocker—you’ve got to be joking!” Debbie, who once sang in a band herself said. “I really like music.  I love singing, but that excludes Joe Cocker.”  Finally after days of pouting and begging she gave in.  “But I’m doing this just for you,” she kept reminding me.  We bought tickets at the last minute.  Luckily they were unsold premiere seats released at the last minute at distressed prices.  Ninth row, center.  “Awesome,” I thought.  “Of all the luck,” Debbie said in disgust.

So on a warm June night there we sat, and Joe Cocker’s band came out.  The first thing I noticed was how big a group they were.  Full drum set, another set of Congas, saxophone, a baby grand piano, a Hammond organ, a tiny woman bass player with huge hair, two back up singers and a lead guitarist who was a dead ringer for David Spade.  Then the music started.  It filled the whole star-filled sky to overflowing.  A full, deep wall of sound.  It was rich like a huge chocolate cake of music.  Deb’s eyes opened wide, and she whispered, “Oh.”

Then Joe came out.  He’s a sixty-five year-old Englishman draped in soft, saggy pink British flesh topped with lots of thin wispy grey hair, dressed in black with a well-earned boomer belly protruding over his black and silver belt.  And then there is the voice.  It’s indescribable.  The best I can say is that it is so painfully screechy his vocal cords must be made of titanium.  So there he stood in all his aging glory blaring out the Beatle classic, “Come Together.”

What’s always amazed me about Joe is that he doesn’t really sing.  He emotes a song.  He does a cross of melodious talking punctuated by frequent voice box shredding screams.  And it works.  Really works.  From the first song the crowd of about 1500 of us were up and dancing, clapping, swaying…all the embarrassing stuff ancient concertgoers do.  Debbie soon realized that over the past 40 years she’s heard almost all of Joe’s songs.  That’s because they are nearly all covers, someone else’s hit song.  He doesn’t imitate the original singer.  Instead he is outrageously original.  The way he alternately screams and whispers, “You are so beautiful” can’t help but fill you with surprising emotion.  So Joe rocked all of us for 100 minutes.  He sang every song that he’d sung 10,000 times as if it was his last concert.  Debbie even became a fan even if just for one evening.  His magic was irresistible.

So what’s Joe Cocker got to do with anything? Well, to me, everything.  He is a bigger than life example that we can do anything.  Joe has been a rock star for 40 years.  He used to fill 20,000 seat arenas.  He won a Grammy.  He has sold tens of millions of CDs, and he can’t really sing, he doesn’t write his songs, he moves on stage like he’s being jolted with tiny bits of electricity.  It’s not pretty.  He occasionally freaks out in an awkward spasm of air guitar or air piano.  Not good.  But, and here’s his magic, his biggest musical influence was Ray Charles, and every song Joe sings is an authentic emotional explosion.  He also surrounds himself with talented back-up singers and world-class musicians.  Always.  In his early touring days he had Stevie Winwood and Leon Russell in his band.  And then there is complete and total giving of himself.

You see Joe knows what he’s good at and knows what he isn’t.  And even though he’s not good at writing lots of music or playing instruments or even singing, what he is absolutely amazing at is putting all these ingredients together into a one-of-a-kind sonic boom.  It’s remarkable; Joe Cocker has made a career out of being Joe Cocker and there is no substitute.  Can’t really sing, not very good looking, doesn’t write music or sing original songs, and yet there he is, making other people’s music unmistakably his own.

So what’s the best thing we can do? Consider this.  The people we tend to admire are original and unafraid to be so.  We need to know what we’re good at and surround ourselves with people who are good at what we’re not.  We need to put forth inspired effort.    Most of all we need to be deeply and genuinely authentic.  Authentic in our best self.  Author Matthew Kelly asks us to imagine the best person we can be and then be that person.  It’s really who we are.

So what do you think?  Is there a Joe Cocker in you?  Is being this authentic a risk worth taking?