Why does Uncle Sam hate music?

It's that magical time of year known in the US as Income Tax time. I've just completed our taxes using Turbo Tax , which I highly recommend, by the way. It's not terribly expensive and I've found it to be very easy to use and quite reliable. Anyway, one of the features of this software is something called "Audit Alert". This basically combs through the minutiae of your tax return and lets you know what item(s) might cause your return to be flagged for an audit.

Well, this year (like previous years), the Audit Alert flagged the fact that I reported income as a Songwriter. It's always just kind of rolled off my back as one of those societal stigmas that for some reason seems to get attached to musicians, but I've been mulling it over. Apparently, the government is suspicious of someone like me who reports his royalties earned from ASCAP . The more I think about it, the more it bugs me, the same way it used to bug me years ago when I was still playing in a band and wore my hair long, and some comb-over in a suit would let me know (usually in no uncertain terms) that wearing my hair long was a "bad thing" and "gave the wrong impression". Basically, it's that age old stereotype that someone who plays music and *gasp* has long hair must be a screw-up, degenerate, drug addicted, lazy, unintelligent person. I don't know if any of you have experienced this, but I assure you it's a stereotype that's out there.

Well, is this Audit Flag any different? I mean, really, what should it matter that I dervied some of my income from writing and producing music? I'm contributing to society in a positive fashion, and (helooooo) I'm actually REPORTING IT!!! Geez, Uncle Sam, if I was the embodiment of the stereotype, believe me, I don't think I'd be telling you about my music related income. I'm sure this attitude has Plato spinning in his grave. I recall a quote (unforunately not precisely nor can I recall the source) from Plato basically saying that without music, society would crumble and cease to exist. Now while this may sound melodramatic, I think people often underestimate the importance of and the presence of music in their everyday lives. Think about it. Tomorrow, try (just try) to make a concious decision to notice how frequently music touches you in a day. Music floats in the background of our world as subtle as the air we breath, but we rarely notice it. Either it's playing in your car, or in an elevator, or from your clock radio, your IPod, from music boxes, in the background of EVERYTHING on television or in the movies, heck, it's even in your head. Think about how often you find yourself just spontaneously singing something. It happens more than you probably realize, and I propose that it is exactly this ubiquitous nature of music which makes life liveable. I think that without it, life would lose an important (if often unnoticed) dimension.

There, I'll get off my soapbox about it, I just wish people would quit lumping musicians into this group of low-lifes. I'm not saying there aren't people who happen to be musicians that fit into the stereotype, on the contrary, there are TONS of them. But, there are also those of us who retain a strong sense of self and ambition, and we hate it when you assume we're the former. So please, Uncle Sam, lighten up, huh?