Profiles of Belief Among Modern Musicians

Rock legend Mick Jagger describes the current “hunger for spirituality” and the feeling of transcendence he experiences during some Rolling Stones performances. Bluesy Joan Osborne praises “the redemptive power of pleasure.” And composer Philip Glass explains how his own practice of Tibetan Buddhist meditation gives him the tranquillity and clarity he needs to create his minimalist masterpieces.

These and other respected artists tell how their spiritual beliefs and practices give meaning to their lives and coherence to their work in the recently published “Inside the Music: Conversations With Contemporary Musicians about Spirituality, Creativity and Consciousness” (Shambhala).

For author Dimitri Ehrlich, a guitarist who works as music editor at MTV, the book is an outgrowth of articles he wrote on music and spirituality.

“I had been interviewing a lot of musicians for many years,” Ehrlich said. “The topic of conversation almost inevitably turned toward the spiritual or the philosophical. So this is just an extension of what I had been doing all along anyway.”

Some of the people interviewed in the book hardly qualify as religious. But the 20 artists included are acclaimed musicians who have at least seriously considered some of life’s deeper issues.

“Take Jeff Buckley,” said the 31-year-old Ehrlich, who interviewed the 30-year-old musician shortly before his death last year. “Buckley doesn’t even have a religious outlook, but he is an individual who has thought hard about what life means. It’s almost an existential thing, a caring about the meaning of life.”

But most of the people Ehrlich profiles are deeply devoted to a body of beliefs, even if their spiritual lives are somewhat unorthodox.

Ziggy Marley, whose life has been guided by dreams and visions, sings songs about the Rastafarian deity Jah. Moby, the iconoclastic Christian musician, sees his electronic music as an antidote to the delusions of the world. Dead Can Dance vocalist Lisa Gerrard describes how she was given “a very sacred tongue, a prayer tongue.” Songwriter and poet Leonard Cohen talks about the healing power of music and his life as a monk at a Zen center outside Los Angeles. And Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, who did more than anyone to popularize the mystical Sufi music called Qawwali before his death last year, saw singing as a form of prayer.

The book is the realization of a dream for Ehrlich, who said music and spirituality have been “the twin obsessions of my life.”

Ehrlich admits it can be difficult to go deep during a 30-minute phone interview with a harried star, and some celebrities don’t even want to risk being vulnerable about their deepest beliefs and values. But Ehrlich believes his own meditation practices help him relax and deepen his focus.

“Some people are like those little bugs that roll into a ball,” he says. “You need to bring then out. Meditation is a way of quieting yourself. And the more your mind is quiet, you’re a better mirror.”

Although the artists Ehrlich profiles follow a diverse variety of spiritual paths, most share the belief that their musical abilities are spiritual gifts received from some higher power and that this realization motivates them to use those gifts wisely and responsibly.