She'll Be Extraordinary

Rejecting the justification of mediocrity

There are a lot of awesome New Zealand phrases.

There’s “don’t get your tits in a tangle” said when someone gets unnecessarily worked up over something.

You might respond, “I’m totally knackered!” when asked how you feel after a long work week.

And my personal favorite, “rattle your dags,” said to someone who is dilly-dallying and needs to hurry up.

One Kiwi phrase I don’t love, though, is, “she’ll be right.”

“She’ll be right” is a belief that “whatever is wrong will right itself with time.” It can be either optimistic or apathetic and can mean something is not perfect but is good enough.

“She’ll be right” is similar to “island time.”

It means don’t sweat the details too much. Just relax and take it easy, which sounds like a harmless enough sentiment at first glance.

But when “she’ll be right” is applied to creative industries, it’s deceptively damaging and can hold people back from accomplishing amazing things.

“She’ll be right” means everything will be ok. But striving for “ok” isn’t what makes great art.

It may be a Kiwi phrase, but I’ve encountered the “she’ll be right” attitude all around the world.

It manifests as venues that respond to advance emails at a glacial pace or not at all.

Promoters who figure out concert details at the 11th hour.

Engineers who ignore provided stage plots and wander in to start setting up the gear when the sound check is supposed to have begun.

People who approach their role in music events like a hobbyist and dismiss other people’s resulting frustrations as them being unreasonably demanding or intense.

Truth be told, I’m not naturally a particularly chill person, so it makes sense that this notion makes me bristle.

Since I started working in bands in my late teens, I’ve felt at odds with the “indie cool” of the band scene and too intense and “businessy” to be viewed as an artiste. The difference now in my professional life in Nashville is that the people I’m lucky enough to work with know better than to show up anything less than on time, fully prepared, and ready to bring their A-game. Because doing so in Nashville means never being hired again.

I used to think “she’ll be right” meant being relaxed and easygoing, an attitude I should aspire to as I worked on shedding my control freak tendencies and strove to fit in.

But the older I get, the more I think it’s a cop-out.

Being organized and relaxed aren’t mutually exclusive concepts, and properly planning and preparing for a gig doesn’t detract from the art you’re going to make; it sets you up to make the best art possible.

Affecting a “she’ll be right” attitude doesn’t inherently mean you’re mellow and chill to work with; it’s often an excuse for laziness and a way to justify mediocrity.

If “she’ll be right” means everything will be ok, I say f that. I don’t want “ok” in my music career; I want exceptional.

I want to surround myself with people who say, “she’ll be extraordinary,” and then give it everything they have to make it so.