The Former Musician Blues

DALL-E 2 INPUT: “A former musician, surrounded by destroyed instruments, under a pink sky, photographed by William Eggleston” (2022)

Someone randomly came into one of my social feeds today with “former musician” in their bio, and the notion sent me, well, riffing…

What, exactly, constitutes a “former” musician?

Did they never “make it?”

Did they forget how to play?

Did their instrument walk out on them?

Did they build a bonfire made of their well-worn lead sheets?

“Former” is often reserved for describing states of being you’re happy to have escaped.

“Former member of [Boy Band]”?

“Former Survivor contestant”

“Former smoker”

“Former drinker”

“Former New York Giants season ticket holder”

For some states of being you’re never a “former,” but rather, a “retired” or an “-ex.”

“Gary? He’s a retired doctor,” for instance, is a common refrain in Florida HOA pickle ball court bleacher seats. You’d only hear “He’s a former doctor,” if Gary had lost his license and turned in his stethoscope, never to practice again.

Once you earn that degree, you are always a doctor.

In the same vein, you may have been “the former principal ballerina for X Company,” but you’re always a ballerina.

Then again, this is dinosaur thinking. With the internet, it’s now next to impossible to become a “former” anything. Every phase of your life exists contemporaneous with the present.

The past lives in real-time now.

All those past lives, in real-time, now.

Imagine that.

There’s no such thing as a “former YouTuber.” You can take down all your vids and delete your profile, and there will still be a record of your absence, if only a paper trail of…