The Customer Is Not Always Right

One of my songs, written some time ago, has the line, "and you know the customer's not always right". I had good reason to write such a line. I started singing, in bars, where as in any other business situation, the rule was/is, that "the customer is
always right". Part of the "divine right of the customer", was for the performers before them, to sing songs they requested.
Occacionally, if the song requested was something I felt comfortable with, I would sing it. Most of the time, I found ways of
wriggling out of this particular brand of serfhood. It was only a matter of time before I removed myself totally from the bar scene, and its quiet brutalization of those who perform in it, choosing to sing only in "human" situations, from that time
onwards...for a time forfeiting the monies that would have been available, if I had continued performing, in such places. In
the "business is business" view of human transactions, routinely, your power is supposed to be given away to your customer,
so that they tell you what to do. As someone working to liberate myself from early chains put upon me by colonial and other
powers, this approach to life, of course, was not one that I could ever be comfortable with. Now...apart from my innate thrust
towards liberty and dignity, I see that in a life where I have not always been wise, there was wisdom in not letting customers
tell me what to sing. I can see how the hundreds and hundreds of songs that I generated, after leaving the bar scene behind,
and to this day, would never have been born, had I devoted much of my life energy, to learning songs from the hit parade,
to please customers, while my own potential for writing songs remained on-goingly untapped. Yes...for reasons on many
levels...I am glad I twigged early on that..."the customer is not always right!".............Quester.