Fella Cederbaum
In Aliens Are Watching, Fella Cederbaum blends poetry, music, and philosophical reflection to explore humanity through extraterrestrial eyes, inviting listeners to question existence, consciousness, compassion, and the search for truth.
1. The central concept of Aliens Are Watchinginvites us to imagine an extraterrestrial civilization observing humanity from an outsider’s perspective. What first inspired this unusual philosophical approach, and why did you feel that looking at ourselves through alien eyes could reveal something important about human nature?
The origins of this approach reside, as do most of my poems, in a few basic core questions that I have pondered since I was quite young: questions about the veracity of God and the various claims to THE truth, yet all conflicting with each other. When we look at the history of humankind, it has always been steeped in blood and conflict, brought about by Individuals, groups or nations, welded to their dogmas and belief systems, in an attempt, to impose them on the rest of humanity. It seems to me that we are forgetting that we are – while I would still like to believe, precious – merely one species, inhabiting an infinitesimally small planet amid an unfathomably huge universe of unfathomably huge numbers of stars and galaxies. I think it might behoove us to take a look, not only at the bigger picture, but also from a completely different angle.
2. Your album addresses some of the most pressing challenges of our time, including war, division, technological change, fear, and the loss of human connection. How do you approach such complex subjects through poetry without allowing the message to overshadow the artistic experience?
If you are saying that that is indeed what you find in my poems, it makes me rather happy. I have never written, in order to achieve any “artistic” goal in and of itself. If there is indeed a message, it emerges in the process of unpremeditated writing, trusting whatever wants to express itself, mostly with only minimal corrections. Very often a whiff of a message clarifies itself, once I read what I have written. More frequently I discover what might be the true message after the poem has been sitting around in the queue of my next book. Borrowing from a well-known proverb, one might say “meaning is in the ear of the beholder.”
3. Aliens Are Watchingcombines spoken-word poetry with your original musical compositions, creating an experience where words, sound, and emotion are closely connected. How does your creative process unfold when bringing these elements together, and does the music usually emerge from the poetry or develop independently?
While the music, as well as the poems travel as though on their own, separate creative tracks. I marry them in different ways. Some poems sound instantly singable to me, almost as I write them. Sometimes a melody comes into my head and provokes new lyrics, or I listen to a piece of music with a specific poem in mind. In the final stage I obviously work on a combination as one integral whole.
4. You’ve described the creative process as something that unfolds almost independently, with words, questions, and music demanding to be expressed authentically. How do you recognize when an artistic idea is ready to take shape, and what role do intuition and spontaneity play in your work?
Spontaneity lies at the root of everything I write. To my mind intuition is more psychological in nature, more goal oriented.
Typically, I don’t sit down in order to write music or a poem, unless there is an urgent question, almost pushing me to write and investigate. Thinking of my ideas as being artistic is an utterly foreign concept. It has truly never occurred to me. There are probably endless things that could take shape, if given enough space. However, certain thoughts or questions appear to be more “pushy” and can suddenly stir a kind of excitation, an excitement in me. I make sure to respect them, write them down. Usually, I find them to have a kind of inner rhythm. That is what feels most authentic to me.
5. Your artistic career spans poetry, filmmaking, composition, painting, and literature, with your work receiving international recognition across several disciplines. How have these different forms of expression influenced one another, and what can a poetry album communicate that a book, painting, or film cannot?
I did not choose poetry, it definitely chose me. In my wildest dreams it would not have occurred to me that I would end up writing poems of all things. In the process of writing them down, I discovered that they appear to be a highly distilled product of many years of pondering certain subject matters. I have discovered that poems tend to point or direct your gaze. It seems to me that honest, uncontrived expressions have their own merit and can communicate, each with its specific emphasis and via different mind filters.
In my experience all authentic expressions originate from the same source and thereby fertilize each other .
6. Rather than offering simple answers, Aliens Are Watchingencourages listeners to question their assumptions about identity, compassion, consciousness, and the meaning of existence. If the album succeeds in changing just one thing about the way people see themselves or treat others, what would you hope that change might be?
Unflinchingly keep looking and digging inside.
The truth that lies inside you, underneath any airs and social posturing, is infinitely more beautiful and precious than even the most magnificent self-image we try to project into the world. If everyone kept doing this unflinchingly, it would be completely impossible to treat others in ways we don’t want to be treated ourselves. Why that is so, lies at the core of everything and will remain to be discovered by each and every one of us.