Madonna advised, “Papa Don’t Preach,” but that didn’t stop me. I preached, poked, chastised, and chided away as a rock critic, with all the righteousness the job entailed in the ‘80s.
Eventually, I moved to what many might consider another dubious gig, political consultant. It was an unlikely leap, made possible by a way of working I picked up honing my former craft: taking in the world with “big ears.”
I learned to listen. Deeply. Searching for the meaning driving what I was hearing. And to tune into other people’s emotional responses. To get a feel for exactly what sent their hearts and minds whirling, swirling, and soaring.
The big-ears approach equipped me to eventually captain cause-related political campaigns. And widespread adoption just might make our American mosh pit more harmonious.
To rewind, I entered music journalism when it was as partisan and fire breathing as today’s politics. This was the era of a Rolling Stone critic calling Queen, “‘the first truly fascist rock band.” Truly!
There was a method to the meanness. By sticking it to acts and genres perceived as frivolous or wrongheaded, the critic might advance sounds more worthy of attention.
But in my experience, condemnation rarely produced converts. The job started to feel one-note. That’s when a shaggy record-store clerk turned me on to the idea of big ears.
The term arose among jazz performers. A player with big ears is well equipped to recognize patterns and jump into a musical stream. Eventually, the term broadened to connote someone who lends an ear across musical borders.
And that trick eventually proved useful when I boogied over to advocacy communications. During the early days of a campaign to prevent youth tobacco use for the NC Health & Wellness Trust, a farmer told us, “Tobacco put a roof over my family’s heads, but that doesn’t mean I want my babies to start smoking.”
In that sentence, you can hear the pride many felt of the hard work and shared experience that came with living in a tobacco-growing state. You can also discern a different vision for the future based on the universal impulse to shelter children from harm. The farmer’s casual remark became our guide for effectively communicating up and down “Tobacco Road.”
On electoral campaigns, big ears have never been more critical. Before 2024, national candidates largely could get by listening to establishment tunemakers — unions, faith leaders, activists representing America’s demographic groups et al.
But with the emergence of podcasts, candidates face a clamor of influential outsider voices. Donald Trump bested Kamala Harris at least in part because his political ears led him to engage more productively with the podcasts that reach, among others, young men. Podcasts are two-way messaging platforms; they require listening and then molding the message to harmonize with “the vibe.”
It all comes down to a willingness to, as George Michael titled his 1990 album, “listen without prejudice” — to appreciate the values and interests, fears, and aspirations people are expressing and to understand their preferred styles of communication. On the same campaign, I’ve worked with both left-leaning groups who like ringing rhetoric and conservatives who favor just-the-facts stats.
Of course, you may hit a lot of right notes but still not earn a targeted group’s support. Nonetheless, there’s always an upside. You’ve explored the worlds of fellow human beings, bumped into someone else’s bubble and paused to take a good look around. You’ve heard them, seen them, really considered them.
This is what believing in the transcendence of music is all about. And it’s something we need more of in our politics and culture. America has turned invective up to 11. Rather than tuning out, lets listen — and learn — in the hopes of ginning up little symphonies.