Trying to figure out best ways to communicate that will keep people happy (and by happy, I mean -- not mad) ... Thought: maybe some people's Communication Style (or Listening-Style?) leads them to believe that if someone is communicating something to them, then immediate action is required. Action in the form of -- a decision, a choice, the giving of a direction, the approval or disapproval of something. ...
But sometimes if someone is telling them something, they're just passing on information that the speaker thinks it might be nice (or just oh-kay) for the information-recipient to know.
Sometimes, it's just -- probably everything is all right, but in case something was wrong (small-percent chance) we would feel we hadn't done our job properly and thoroughly if we didn't pass on the information. ([Later] - "You mean you knew this and you didn't TELL ANYONE???!!!" ...) So you give information which does not require instant action of any kind. It's just -- awareness.
But if the recipient's Communication-Style is "Essentials-Only-And-Real-Fast" then if you give them info that doesn't require action, then it's as if it isn't "Essential" and then it's like you're just bothering them, wasting their time.
(But of course if you didn't "bother" them with it, then later it'd be, "You mean you noticed this and you didn't tell anyone??!!"...)
However if nothing ever goes wrong, then you find a possible perception of, "Why are you Bothering Me At All With This-Useless-Information???!!!"
---------------------------- (And when I think the phrase, "useless information" -- THEN all I can think of is,
Useless infor - mation
Supposed -- to
Buy my imagination!
[Bahm!] - I can't GET no -
Bom-bom-bomp -- bom-bom-bomp
HEY-hey-hey!
[Bahm-mm bmh bmh bmh]
That's what I say! ...)
------------------------------------- [excerpt, Life, by Keith Richards] -------------------- Then came "Satisfaction," the track that launched us into global fame. ...I wrote "Satisfaction" in my sleep. I had no idea I'd written it, it's only thank God for the little Philips cassette player.
The miracle being that I looked at the cassette player that morning and I knew I'd put a brand-new tape in the previous night, and I saw it was at the end. Then I pushed rewind and there was "Satisfaction." It was just a rough idea.
{Google - "Satisfaction" the Rolling Stones and Listen}
There was just the bare bones of the song, and it didn't have that noise, of course, because I was on acoustic. And forty minutes of me snoring....
Mick wrote the lyrics by the pool in Clearwater, Florida, four days before we went into the studio and recorded it -- first at Chess in Chicago, an acoustic version, and later with the fuzz tone at RCA in Hollywood. ...
It was down to one little foot pedal, the Gibson fuzz tone, a little box they put out at that time. ...
...I was imagining horns, trying to imitate their sound to put on the track later when we recorded. I'd already heard the riff in my head the way Otis Redding did it later, thinking, this is gonna be the horn line.
But we didn't have any horns, and I was only going to lay down a dub. The fuzz tone came in handy so I could give a shape to what the horns were supposed to do. But the fuzz tone had never been heard before anywhere, and that's the sound that caught everybody's imagination.
Next thing I know, we're listening to ourselves in Minnesota somewhere
on the radio, "Hit of the Week," and we didn't even know Andrew had put the [expletive deleted] thing out! At first I was mortified.
As far as I was concerned that was just the dub. Ten days on the road and it's number one nationally! The record of the summer of '65.
So I'm not arguing.
And I learned that lesson -- sometimes you can overwork things. Not everything's designed for your taste and your taste alone.
-30-
