The Story Behind Scarecrow - My Beck (Super) Fan Art

Scarecrow and Door - reimagined by AI - conceptualized sometime in 2023

For many years now, I've been a huge Beck fan. Beck - from such hits as "Loser", "Where it's At", "Devils Haircut", "New Pollution", and many, many more (Beck is a prolific artist).

So, I wouldn't necessarily call myself a super-fan, but, besides spending dozens of hours on fan art, I have seen him in concert at least 5 or 6 times. I flew to El Paso, Texas in the early aughts in order to see him live in concert for the first time. Since then, he's come to Colorado a handful of times, and I'm pretty sure I've caught every show he's done in Colorado. I'm going to his upcoming show with the Colorado Symphony at Red Rocks on July 27, 2025. Make of that what you will.

I have been enchanted by Beck's music ever since his hit "Loser" came out back in the 90's. "Loser" hooked me, but Beck's incredible, prolific, poetic, innovative creative journey has kept me on the line, threw me in the boat and gutted me for the last 30 (? 30 - really??) years.

Let me share with you the reason why Beck's music and lyrics have haunted my dreams for the last 30 years. There is only one line in his extensive catalogue that I need to draw on as an example:

"So tell the angels what you've seen, a scarecrow's shadow on a Nazarene."

Excerpt from Emergency Exit, by Beck from his Guero album

Aside from the hauntingly blues-y, chain-gang-drudge beat, Emergency Exit, in my humble opinion, is genius. I have replayed this song, memorized (or at least tried to memorize) the lyrics for the last 25-30 years. I can't hear it enough, never get sick of it... it's in every playlist I create on my phone.

A scarecrow's shadow on a Nazarene....That line, it's like... WOW... WOW, WOW. That line, that imagery just haunts me. Besides the music, Beck is poetic genius, and I'm in complete awe of his perfect song poems (think Plato's realm of Forms) that pours out of him and into his work. He has tapped into that perfect metaphysical world and brought it to us live. Okay, so you can see, yes, I'm a super-fan.

His music has inspired and informed many of my sketches. I have lots of images in my head, that I can see in that perfect world of forms, but I have a lot of trouble bringing them into the real world - ie., these images always look better in my head. I've tried to capture these images on paper, but, 😞, I'm not the most skilled artist in the world.

Despite my artistic shortcomings, I had to put that image Beck lodged in my brain to paper, just to see it IRL. Here is my original initial sketch:

Scarecrow's Shadow

I made a few changes, decided to add color, and it became (OMG, did I just ruin it???):

I had mixed in elements from an earlier sketch I made back in 2015:

The tree and background is from a pic I took during a gorgeous hike back in 2014 or 2015. The death door, and the drawing behind it was from an earlier work, 2013 maybe. Trying to find Plato's realm, just lost AF.

Scarecrow collage

So, here's the collage I was trying to make. Meh.

Enter AI.

Look, I have a job out in the real world, and our office has heard more than just whisperings... watch out, AI is coming for your job... Corporate messaging swirling around the workforce. My job, some day, will be taken over by AI, I'm fairly certain. They want us to use AI, help it learn how to do our jobs. So, I have been using it. But, probably not the way They intended me to use it.

Since I've been playing around with AI "fixing" (?) "re-imagining", "re-generating" my art, a new creative ember has sparked artistic fire in my world. So far, I have to say it, AI has gotten a lot closer to the images in my head than my clumsy human eye-hand brain coordination ever could. I mean... just see for yourself:

Lavafall into Starry Night

"It's a little too much to ask for faith, a little too late to wait for fate.... Kindness, will find you when darkness is falling 'round the bend, Kindness will follow, children will wander 'til the end." Emergency Exit, by Beck, from the album Guero.

Plato's perfect world is out there, somewhere in the ether. Some people have been so gifted as to tap into it and bring it to the rest of us, none better than Beck (IMO). Not sure? Go google lyrics to his "Lazy Flies" (any of his songs, really). Listen to the music. I hear it and think of strumming, deep, pregnant, hallowed rhythmic lyrically inspired music. Loaded, it sits on the brain. Indescribable brilliance.

2017 - Guitar Bolder Boulder

I wanted to clean this one up a bit....

AI really captured the feel I was going for. It's not perfect, but it's good! Some people call it AI slop - I like it. And, I've always used em dashes and will continue to do so.