muse, muse

[BRESLIN.JOHN@EPAMAIL.EPA.GOV]

Someone suggested that PT's muse had left.  I think, rather, that
Pete has barely tapped his muse.  He could generate untold quantities
of wonderful songs if he would strip away the garbage from his psyche
and let himself flourish.  The past is a serious (perhaps fatal)
restraint on PT: Psychoderelict is only good because such an awesome
talent created it; it is pathetic and limited in the extent that PT's
ego is involved, with all its associations of the past.  Pete: LET IT
GO!  It's like the middle-aged man who clings to high school football
glories, when he should be in the prime of life.  Look what obsession
with the past has done to Pete--it places such shackles on his
creative talent.  The muse has barely even fired up.  Take away the
ego, the fear, the obsession with the past, and let what's in there
really shine (take away, "I work myself to death just to fit in."). 
The same thing has happened to Ray Davies of the Kinks.  This guy who
should be shifting to a different focus and a more acoustic medium
now insists on the Kinks as this historic institution and half the
songs are about what it's like to be a Kink instead of what it's like
to be a human being.  These guys are killing their own muses.  The
Who's Tommy?  Please, the thing is only good at all because such a
talent created it.  Let it go, man.  Move on.  Oh, and Pete, the
biggest thing of all: admit you're an alcoholic and start to recover.
 Think I'm being a geek: read the Playboy interview from 1993 (?),
and you'll hear a guy seriously wallowing in massive ego-denial.  I
say all this because all these ego type things keep us from hearing
Pete's best music.  Also, I think Pete has achieved the heights he
could live at in the future once on recent record: IRON MAN.  It is
unrestrained joy compared to most of his stuff.  I still believe it
is vastly underrated, and his most bouyant and accomplished work. 
"The sea refuses no river."