i get by with a little help from my friends

Have you ever loved an artist so wholly that you've accidentally mistaken them for a friend? Perhaps you associate them with someone who slightly resembles the way they look. Or maybe you've watched so many youtube videos of interviews and witty banter between songs on stage that you can't help but feel like you know them.

And then, suddenly, without even noticing it you begin to feel like a proud mother watching them on stage. You get emotional about their music as if you know what they were thinking as they wrote it. You might even formulate interviews into two-sided conversations in your mind that you had with them. Not to some stalker extent, just to the extent that you begin to feel like you know every little thing about artist. Their emotions are spewed across the table, so raw and open to the public; how can you not feel like you know them?

And then you meet them. Maybe for the first time, maybe for the 45th... but regardless there will be that one time when it will hit. You will realize that this artist standing in front of you might know your name, perhaps they know your favorite song or an anecdote you've told them about why you love them as much as you do. But at the end of the day you go home and go to bed and for every single 'inside joke' you have with them. For every word uttered at that meet and greet or signing that you've replayed in your head a thousand times... they have done nothing but go home, go to bed and think about what they have to do in the morning. Sometimes it stings. Actually, scratch that, most of the time it stings.

You invest yourself so wholly in these artists and they read your thoughts so well. They play right to your own heart. Hell, they even glance in your direction while playing your favorite chord of your favorite song. Right? But somewhere deep inside you know it's all just an image. It's all just a means of promoting themselves. I once heard a story about an artist asking a girl for her MySpace. The girl absolutely blew her lid convinced that they were 'into her'. As it turned out they were asking every girl on the line for their MySpace for that exact reason. It's not heartless until you realize how many hearts it unintentionally breaks.

I just wonder what the music would sound like if the artists dreamed of the fans instead of the other way around.