Globex Corporation Newsletter

From Steve Thorpe's column in The Rapid City Journal

Take “American Idol,” for example. I have caught a few pieces of the show before the open mike at The Howling Wolf in Lead on Tuesdays. It leaves me cold. It’s football without the ball and the padding. The joy of victory. The agony of defeat.

Not that these kids don’t have talent. There are some fine voices at work, but that’s not what “American Idol” is about. The talent and the music are secondary. The show is about being on the make. It’s about wanting to be idolized. In the immortal words of Joni Mitchell, “Where’s that at? If you want me, I’ll be in the bar.”

Music, at its best, is an expression of human emotion -- joy, pain, sorrow, love, hope, mischief, often all at the same time. My own experience is that if I’m thinking about anything other than the song I’m singing, the song will come off “wrong,” phony, incomplete. Stillborn. Maybe I’m projecting, but I sometimes see this in other singers, too.

Steve is as fine a musician and songwriter as I've ever known, and one of the finest individuals as well.

Steve has the talent to say things that I've wanted to say myself, but couldn't find the right combination of words to express them. This comes pretty close.

BOJ