Life lessons from Charlie Watts

There’s a scene in the movie “Almost Famous” where a young William Miller is going through the records his sister has left him. Inside the gatefold of The Who’s “Tommy,” he finds a note that reads “Listen to Tommy with a candle burning and you will see your entire future.”

I think the drumming of Charlie Watts is similarly inspired and inspiring. Listen to the first 15 seconds of “Honky Tonk Women” on a loop, for example, and you will begin to understand what it means to stay in the pocket, to play what fits the song, nothing more and nothing less, to focus on substance not surface, to find the groove and rest in it, to swing.

While my chosen instrument is guitar, not drums, I think these lessons still apply, and I think they go beyond music to how we carry ourselves in life — how we work with others, how we worship, how we exist in family and community.

I have been listening to a lot of old Stones records since the death of Charlie Watts and it is astounding to me just how solid, unpretentious, consistent, and sublime he was as a drummer and a gentleman. Rest in the pocket, Charlie. Roll on. “Our love is like our music, it’s here and then it’s gone.”