By The Landlord
“Let it be virtuous to be obstinate.” – William Shakespeare, Coriolanus
“There's none so blind as those who will not listen.” – Neil Gaiman, American Gods
“Many are stubborn in pursuit of the path they have chosen, few in pursuit of the goal.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
“It gives me great pleasure indeed to see the stubbornness of an incorrigible nonconformist warmly acclaimed.” – Albert Einstein
“Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable.” – Mark Twain
“Good advice is always certain to be ignored, but that's no reason not to give it.” – Agatha Christie
“I’m from the lineage of the Panzas, and they’re all stubborn, and if they say odds once, odds it’ll be, even if it’s evens, no matter what anybody says.” – Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote
It’s a quality that is both blessing and curse, having mule-like strength yet also carrying a burden. All successful pioneers, artists, entrepreneurs and leaders possess it up to a point, but how far should it be allowed to go? It might be a dogged obstinacy, obduracy, inflexibility and bullheadedness that turns out to be mistaken. Or an admirably brave persistence, pertinacity, tenacity and indomitability that turns out to be right. Of course it goes both ways, and that’s one of many reasons why the tension between these two possible outcomes makes being stubborn a potent topic in any form, including, of course, as expressed in song lyrics.
In song then, stubbornness is what often causes the tension in relationships, the unspoken communication, causing the need to articulate what can’t be said in song instead. And right now, in the bigger picture we seem to be in particularly stubborn times, more politically divided, dogmatic and partisan that ever before. It seems as if an obstinate disease has inflicted itself upon much of our culture in the last three years.
But first, history is decorated, or littered with obstinate people on both sides of the coin. Abraham Lincoln’s dogged persistence in mobilising the move to abolish slavery was one of his greatest achievements, but that same quality could well have cost him his life. As William Cobbett put it: “Men of integrity are generally pretty obstinate, in adhering to an opinion once adopted.” So in that respect Lincoln refused to listen to the warnings of Charles Colchester, a British, albeit shady character, who claimed as a clairvoyant, after an edgy friendship with Mary Todd Lincoln, that the president’s life was in danger just weeks before his assassination. Lincoln of course ignored him.
Staff on the HMS Titanic ignored iceberg warnings before the 1912 disaster
Some ignored advice can cost not one, but thousands of lives. In 1912, before the disaster, the crew of the ship the Mesaba warned their counterparts on the Titanic about the dangers of icebergs ahead, but the radio operator who received it didn’t deem it important enough.
And pertaining even more notorious even that had long-term consequences, Cofer Black was the chief of the CIA's counter-terrorism unit in 2001, and issued strong warning to the president, GW Bush about the possibility of a terrorist attack before 9/11. He even had a meeting with Condoleezza Rice about it, but she and the president ignored him. “Facts are stubborn things,” said one of Bush’s Republican predecessors, Ronald Reagan, but like their present day party, they continue to be stubbornly ignored, or corruptly misrepresented.
Bush and Rice: ignored terrorism warnings from the CIA before 9/11
And related to this, particularly in relation to the current president, here’s 18th-century American philosopher, Thomas Paine, from The American Crisis published in the revolution period between 1776 and 1783, but in many ways bang up to date about his own soil: “To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavouring to convert an atheist by scripture.”
He adds: “There is something in obstinacy which differs from every other passion; whenever it fails it never recovers, but either breaks like iron or crumbles sulkily away like a fractured arch. Most other passions have their periods of fatigue and rest; their suffering and their cure; but obstinacy has no resource, and the first wound is mortal.”
While some start wars for whatever end, others refuse to believe they are over. Hiroo Onoda was the Japanese Second World War soldier who refused to surrender for 29 Years until 1974, when his former commander had to be flown in to announce the reversal of his 1945 orders.
And in the bigger picture, after his achievements with penicillin that led to saving millions of lives, and receiving the Nobel Prize for Medicine, Alexander Fleming gave a lecture in which he warned that microbes can become "resistant" to antibiotics if they were exposed to "non-lethal quantities of the drug.” This is an ongoing prediction that is as much ignored as heeded, and will no doubt prove to be continuously true.
Obstinacy can also have other political and economic consequences. At the end of his presidency George Washington warned against the dangers of partisan politics and political parties. Consider then how much might be achieved if people worked together rather than fighting for one team against another. This was his warning about the political party system, which of course everyone ignored:
"It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.”
So the majority can often be those that are weak, and ignore the stubbornly strong individual. Before the 2007 economic crash, Brooksley Born was an activist lawyer who tried to warn Alan Greenspan that derivatives should be regulated, yet he completely dismissed her and made sure she couldn't take action on her own. That went well then, didn’t it?
Brilliantly stubborn football manager Brian Clough, but better when he didn’t ignore the advice of assistant Peter Taylor (left)
But individuals who are stubborn, while being self-defeating, can also be high achievers, simply because they don’t give a damn what other people think. Football manager Brian Clough for example, or Yorkshire and England cricketer Geoffrey Boycott, for example. While these outspoken individuals are famous for their unbending approach, here’s another sportsman known for bending the ball in flight, and more quietly obstinate. David Beckham: I'm a very stubborn person. I think it has helped me over my career. I'm sure it has hindered me at times as well, but not too many times. I know that if I set my mind to do something, even if people are saying I can't do it, I will achieve it.”
And then in business, how about Steve Jobs, the Apple pioneer, a notoriously difficult and stubborn man lacking social skills, who doggedly changed the world with his vision and insistence that computers would be in every home, but refused treatment for his cancer. The multi-billionaire Jeff Bezos founder of Amazon says: “If you’re not stubborn, you’ll give up on experiments too soon. And if you’re not flexible, you’ll pound your head against the wall and you won’t see a different solution to a problem you’re trying to solve.”
On a more entertaining level, actor Marlon Brando, who often refused to learn lines, and for example in Apocalypse Now, improvised most his speeches. The results were variously awful or brilliant, or often both. On the set of the Score, again hugely overweight, he turned up trouserless to wind up director Frank Oz, and so they would only film his top half.
Marlon Brando on the set of Apocalypse Now
And in terms of film characters themselves, perhaps one of the most entertainingly stubborn is that of Cool Hand Luke, played by Paul Newman. His character, Lucas "Luke" Jackson is originally arrested for vandalising parking meters when drunk and is sentenced to two years in prison and sent to a Florida prison chain gang. Throughout his ever-extending term, he refuses to conform to the prison system. There are of course many famous scenes, from the fight with giant George Kennedy, when Luke refuses to lie down, to his various escapes despite punishment, there was also a parallel behind the scenes.Like the stubborn character he portrayed, Paul Newman himself insisted on playing banjo in the film, despite having no ability, and against the wishes of the director Stuart Rosenberg. However, with persistence, he practised the instrument in between scenes, and was taught how to play Plastic Jesus by fellow actor Harry Dean Stanton. Here there’s clear evidence of the tension and strain of that on set, but it’s also strangely moving:
So then, despite my refusal to open the Song Bar doors until ready, a number of guests have been stubbornly queuing to get in today and have their say on this topic. First in, and straight to the piano, is a dishevelled composer by the name of Ludwig van Beethoven, a difficult but brilliant man, who desire many difficulties, was stubborn enough to see through his vision:
“O, you men who think or say that I am malevolent, stubborn or misanthropic, how greatly do you wrong me. You do not know the secret cause which makes me seem that way to you, and I would have ended my life - it was only my art that held me back. Ah, it seemed impossible to leave the world until I had brought forth all that I felt was within me.”
And by enormous and albeit absurd contrast, because that’s exactly what’s possible here at the Bar, standing right next to him here’s Britney Spears, who makes her own stubborn comparison: “If I was to pick a cartoon character I am most like, I would say Daisy Duck because she is very stubborn, she has a very feminine sense, and she knows what she likes.”
Meanwhile here’s Kate Bush on how obstinacy marked her early life in wanting to stick to music: “My parents weren't keen on the giving up of school at the beginning to go into singing and dancing, but once they saw I was serious about it, they gave support. I was quite stubborn about my decision, and in the end, they realised it was for the best.”
Patti Smith talks about the topic from both sides. “I try not to give too much advice, really, because people have to do their things their way. I got lots of advice when I was young, and I ignored most of it – the good and the bad.”
Patti Smith: ‘I mostly ignored advice when I was younger’
And from a personal development to a more widespread on the creative issue, here’s Todd Rundgren on how the music industry could be ignorantly stubborn on allowing new music to flourish. Nothing new there. “It was always remarkable to me how ignorant the labels were of the listening habits of their own customers, and how obstinate they were in denying those habits and then trying to essentially alter those habits instead of retooling their business to adapt to them.”
There are also now more literary heavyweights in the house stubbornly adding their material to the topic. First up, here’s Jane Austen, from Pride and Prejudice:
“There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me.”
And from Charles Dickens and Great Expectations:“They ran their heads very hard against wrong ideas, and persisted in trying to fit the circumstances to the ideas instead of trying to extract ideas from the circumstances.” And “whitewash on the forehead hardens the brain into a state of obstinacy, perhaps.”
Here also is HG Wells, with an even more vivid image: “Very well," said the Voice, in a tone of relief. "Then I'm going to throw flints at you till you think differently.”― The Invisible Man
The stubborn quality of animals are often compared within humans. “Roused by the lash of his own stubborn tail our lion now will foreign foes assail,” says John Dryden. And on the mule example, “a man would rather break his donkeys back than give it the carrot it requires to progress,“ says R.P. Falconer.
A fewer final extras are finally in how adding their own tuppence. “The oak that will not bend; breaks,” says Jason Versey. ““The penalty for a long life is increasing resistance to change, says Peter F. Hamilton from Manhattan in Reverse. “All my problems bow before my stubbornness.” Says Amit Kalantri, from the Wealth of Words. And finally Lionel Shriver, who summarises the double-edged nature of obstinacy in her own work: “Authors are free to ignore their editors' advice. I often avail myself of this veto power - sometimes out of a pigheadedness for which I'll pay the price.”
We began with an image of one of the most obstinate of any musical artists, Captain Beefheart, who had such a singular vision for what he wanted he would variously lock up, abuse or half starve his musicians until the job was done. A dangerous, difficult but brilliant man. So let’s also end with another kind obstinate artist, a stubborn kind of fellow, the brilliant Marvin Gaye, who certainly did things his way, with a song to start things off:
So this week, don’t compromise. It’s time to obstinately push forward your nominations for songs on this topic. And I’m delighted to welcome this week’s guest guru, who certainly has an often admirably stubborn side himself, the marvellous Maki! Deadline is this coming Monday 11pm UK time, for playlists published on Wednesday. Your stubbornness will pay off.
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