The whole Steve Earle pseudo-controversy is pretty trivial in and of itself, but it has spurred some interesting blogospheric commentary on songwriting, art, politics and what have you. Eric Olsen has a pretty comprehensive survey of the spontaneous Earle-related blog-burst, along with some pointed comments of his own (there are several posts-- it's all over his current page, so keep scrolling.) Matt Welch has more; Ken Layne has a whole column (he's self-deprecating about it, but it's great); Jim Henley provides stimulating commentary as well. As far as I'm concerned, this pretty much exhausts the topic, but like I said, Earle himself isn't the only point of interest.
I've received some email questioning my "narcissistic" claim that anyone would bother to waste their time vilifying any of my inconsequential little songs: I assure you it happens. But my point in mentioning it was certainly not to complain that I'm some kind of "victim" because of it (as one scatological email implied.)
Nor do I think Steve Earle is a victim. That's ridiculous. As Layne says, "the trouble comes when you let the ruckus kill the art, when you claim oppression before the record is even released. Unless this country magically became Iran yesterday, performing a controversial song is still punished by a lot of free publicity." If he's really "claiming oppression" then he's nuts, just like those who are lining up to claim oppression on his behalf. Okay, he may be nuts anyway. My point was that there is something about the mimetic nature of first-person songwriting that seems to confuse people, even people who know a lot about music, even sometimes people who are themselves songwriters. And I was trying to suggest that the complexity and blurriness of the relationship between the songwriter and the song might be a part of why a good song can be so emotionally powerful.
In fact, a song doesn't even have to be particularly good for this phenomenon to occur around it, though it helps. Listeners bring as much to the table as the singer, and they often draw out meanings and implications that the guy who wrote the song could not possibly have intended. I could certainly illustrate this with several examples from my modest songwriting "career." Maybe I will even do this at some point, though I prefer to spend time actually writing songs than writing about them, so it may never happen.
A quick one: a few years back I wrote a song called "Deep Deep Down" about a famous Bay Area murder. It was essentially a love song from the point of view of the murderer, which the narrator delivered as he looked down for one last time over the body, like many such songs in the history of American popular music. A surprising number of listeners never even realized that it was about a murder in the first place. That's because the love song, though by no means perfect, was sincere and emotionally authentic, even though (I promise) I've never murdered anybody. People took the violent language figuratively, I guess: and it's interesting that so many ordinary kids, expecting only a love song, would find the murder-love overlap appropriate and comprehensible enough that they'd completely miss the obvious narrative content. I was initially a bit horrified by all the young couples who would approach me at a show and announce that it was "their song"-- there even were one or two of them claiming they planned to have it played at their wedding. (I'd always advise the bride not to ruin the happiest day of her life and suggest something like "More" or "The Girl From Ipanema" or the one about blossoms clinging to the vine. Really, it's amazing how young people can be so sentimental and emotionally attached to the sardonic songs of bitter old curmudgeons. I tell them to forget the songs and enjoy life. Somebody has to.)
Then there were those who realized what the song was about, held me personally responsible, asked what "I" was trying to say, talked about the "male gaze" (which sounded like a non sequitur and an oxymoron when I first misunderstood how it was spelled), accused me of "Hitchcock-like" misogyny (Alfred, not Robyn-- those from an over-"educated" rock journalist, naturally), etc. I'm not saying that they're completely wrong to believe that there's something a little "off" about the fact that a harmless dude like me finds it easy to take on the identity of a murderer for two and half minutes every now and again. But it's equally "off" that listeners relate to the character to the point where some of them don't even realize what he's talking about, though his self-justification never convinced me for a second. This "off-ness" is part of human nature (which the aforementioned rock journalist assured me did not exist-- that was a hell of an interview, eh?) Years later, it still keeps coming up. Right or wrong, the situation should be pretty familiar to everyone who has listened to any American popular music at all. But for some reason it's still powerful and disconcerting enough to throw sophisticated listeners for a loop every now and then. To my continuing surprise.
Posted by Dr. Frank at July 23, 2002 02:12 PM | TrackBack