Come Together, Right Now...

I found this meme and it got my attention right away.  They intend to entertain, but they end up delivering an ironic truth.  The part that sticks in my craw is the bottom right panel because I'm an original musician.  As musicians, we all would love to play our music but we bow to the pressure of venues and play covers.  I've lost gigs because I play one or two covers per set and the rest is my music.  I made a promise to myself that when I got back into music I was going to do nothing but write and perform my original music.

Ideally, musicians should band together like our counterparts in the Screen Actors Guild and form a strong coalition that assists us in getting better paying gigs, and proper remuneration from streaming services.  Instead, we have young musicians who "just want to play" and will do it for free which hurts us all.  The rest just rally under the "I just wanna play" banner and act like a brick wall impeding the progress of the rest of us.

I have no problem if you want to play music for the joy of it and nothing more.  Just don't don't take away paying gigs from musicians who are trying to make a living.