Miscellaneous - December 2010

  by Lisa Torem

published: 4 / 12 / 2010

intro

In 'Rock Salt Row' Lisa Torem talks to another Pennyblackmusic writer every month about a different subject in rock every month. In this edition she speaks with John Clarkson about whether songwriters are simply would-be novelists

Two Writers Season One Historic Moment LISA Every once in a while you meet someone who captivates you, someone you’d like to spend the day with or at least share a cup of coffee. Each time you hear this person’s name, you recall how much they moved you or how much they made you laugh. You might not understand, at first, what drew you to this person. But soon you realize you were meant to be together and you’ll cherish your three minutes together. They have inexplicably altered your life. Maybe her name was ‘Eleanor Rigby’ or ‘Runaround Sue’ or his was ‘Mr Bojangles’ or ‘A Boy Named Sue’. They’re part of you now and you will never forget them. 'Ruby Tuesday' was a character study which was very reflective of the ethos of the 60s. “Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday, who could hang a name on you?/When you change with every new day/Still I’m going to miss you.” The counter-culture hoped to thwart conventional relationships which were considered repressive and possessive. Ruby was a free spirit, but she was still loved and revered by the narrator, though her degree of commitment might have eluded his. Indie artist Ashley Reaks wrote a gem called 'Elizabeth’s Loneliness': “Elizabeth’s invisible/She’s an unsolved mystery/A wallflower with a wooden heart/She blends in with the scenery/She’s a scaredy cat/She’s quiet as a mouse/She keeps her own company.” Surrounded by lush vocals and gorgeous chords, Reaks delves deeply into this woman’s soul. In ‘Serena,’ the frustrated Reaks sings,“We met in 1991/Not much interested her/Just drugs and anorexia/She was 19/I was 23/Won’t somebody tell her that they love her?” 'Eleanor Rigby' was a classic of the Beatles cannon. Two loners appear here: “Eleanor Rigby died in the church and was buried along wit her name/Nobody came/Father McKenzie wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave/No one was saved.” Both characters invite our empathy. They feel powerless. Lennon and McCartney reveal our deepest fears. Will we die alone? Will we change the world, vote for the right candidate, but then, ultimately find we’ve accomplished nothing? Billy Joel offers a toned-down, quick-fix of a solution: “Sing me a song/You’re the piano man/Sing me a song tonight/Because we’re all in the mood for a melody…” Joel realizes what a conundrum it is to feel isolated, so he made his subject a jovial man who brings the geeks, the divas and the disenchanted together. He’s a karaoke machine; a musical saviour. “The crowd rushes in” illustrates how vital the piano man is to these lost, late-night souls who sing along until the wee hours of the morning. Janis Ian’s 'Jesse' is another divine tale of loneliness. “Jesse come home / There’s a hole in the bed…” and 'At Seventeen' is the quintessential look at “an ugly duckling girl like me.” I remember once reading about an interview with a very beautiful fashion model who discussed her sense of isolation. Men never asked her out because they figured there was someone in the picture. Everyone was intimidated by her perfect looks. How ironic to think that being that gorgeous would present problems, yet she seemed sincere. Being flawed, though? Most of us can sink our teeth into that. Mental illness pulls at our hearts, too: In James Taylor’s 'Fire and Rain', the songwriter conveys melancholy with hammer-ons, complex finger-picking and austere guitar chords: “Just yesterday morning/They let me know you were gone/Suzanne, the plans we made put an end to you.” Suzanne went off to a mental institution. 'Sad Lisa' by Cat Stevens, was about a girl overwhelmed by her own uncontrollable and unmanageable psychosis. The folk song, 'Richard Corey', details a man who appears to have it all, but is desperately depressed. What touches us about these characters? Do we feel superior to them? Do they pump up our egos? After all, we can still manage to get through the day, right? 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' is “a girl with “kaleidoscope eyes.” But, like 'Ruby Tuesday', you turn the corner, sadly, to find that she’s gone… What draws us to these fictional characters? Is it the repetitive melody, the drone or do they recall someone we’ve known or read about? Dorothy Parker once said, “the traveller carries herself.” Van Morrison’s 'Brown Eyed Girl' relies on the singer’s great enthusiasm for his lady. The lyrics are not deep, they’re almost childlike. “Standing and a running/Skipping and a Jumping/You’re my brown-eyed girl,” he wails. But, she comes to life because she inspires such happiness. “Michelle, ma belle/These are words that go together well,” sings Sir Paul. She’s magnetic and he adores her despite their language barriers. 'Dear Prudence', 'Martha My Dear' and 'Lovely Rita' were three character-driven Lennon McCartney vehicles for stunning portraits. The first was written about Mia Farrow’s sister who had gone to India with the lads to meditate. She spent long hours inside; her friends grew concerned about her. “The sun is up/The sky is blue/It’s beautiful and so are you/Dear Prudence/ Won’t you come out to play?” chronicles the scenario flawlessly. It’s possibly the most sincere song of friendship ever written. The minimalist, hypnotic drone behind the lyrics shows the passage of time. The elegant 'Martha My Dear' is staged like a minuet done in the king’s court. The last of this trilogy, 'Lovely Rita', charmingly describes an ordinary girl: “Nothing can come between us/When it gets dark I tow your heart away,” he promises. “In her hat she looks much older/And the bag across her shoulder/Makes her look a little like a military man,” Exquisite internal rhymes and a sense that Rita walks down everybody’s street, combine to illustrate an extraordinary, but approachable woman. Even 'Wild Thing' is a scream, though the subject is anonymous. 'Wild Thing/You make my heart sing/You make everything groovy.” Imagine a song where the main character is just a weird nameless image. Some people think songwriters are simply lazy would-be novelists. Fair or unfair? JOHN It doesn’t seem to me that there is a lack of musicians who have taken up “writing”, but in fact an over abundance of them. We have all seen and often read their books, the badly and usually ghost written autobiographies that dominate the display rack in the ‘Music Section’ in Waterstone’s. It is true though. Musicians don’t tend to write a lot of fiction. Part of that undoubtedly comes down from the fact that fiction is a more difficult medium to market let alone write than an autobiography, and why should you bother yourself with it when you can spend a few days or even hours rambling instead into a tape recorder about yourself, get someone else to cull it all together for you, and then call the product a book? It is, cynicism aside, more than this though. There are the great storytellers, the Springsteens and the Dylans. Most singer-songwriters, despite all the songs and srtists you have mentioned, however, don’t really tell stories, but deal with emotions and issues – love, politics, hate, death, and, as it is the one thing that causes more anguish and joy than anything else, love all over again. A lot of us dream about writing books, but never find the time or have the inclination to get around to it. The world is full of unpublished authors and novelists and in that respect the average singer-songwriter or musician is probably not really all that much different from the rest of us. I think in fact that is the main reason why there are not more musician–authors. The ones who do and are often the best at it are the narrators anyway and writing is usually simply a natural extension of them being themselves anyway. Nick Cave’s second novel of last year, ‘The Death of Bunny Munro’, was disturbing, graphic, sensational and confrontational, just like the great man’s best work with the Bad Seeds and before them the Birthday Party. Willy Vlautin from the ever excellent Richmond Fontaine is now the author of three novels and has taken this further, often merging together the characters in his songs and books. ‘Allison Johnson’ from his 2004 ‘Post to Wire’ album is the most tender of love songs. She is also the alcoholic main character in his second book, ‘Northline’, and ends up going on the run after taking one too many beatings from her Nazi boyfriend. Vlautin wrote the song, because after putting her into a bad situation in the book, he wanted as he told Pennyblackmusic at the time of ‘Post to Wire’ to write her a song to tell her not give up on herself. ‘Laramie, Wyoming’ from Richmond Fontaine’s 2005 album, ‘The Fitzgerald’, tells of a kid running away to his aunt’s house in Laramie and provided the early blueprint for his third novel, ‘Lean On Pete,’ in which a kid, now with a retired race horse who he is trying to save from the knacker’s yard in tow, crosses America to try and find his lost aunt and only surviving relative. ‘Bothering the Coffee Drinkers’ is a 2006 collection of short stories by the Chicago born, Nashville-based singer-songwriter, Doug Hoekstra. Bookended by two accounts of his own experiences on the road, it is subtitled ‘Musical Essays and Fiction’ and each of its stories is about a musician. ‘Stage Energy’, the stand-out piece, is about a Chicago singer-songwriter who discovers during a recording session that one of her session musicians is a heroin addict and is a masterpiece of the short story genre. LISA Janis Ian, in her first interview with Pennyblackmusic, said, “writing is writing.” Whether one uses this discipline to create a ballad or a sci-fi story, she insists that the same focus and diligence is required. Like Willy Vlautin, Ian enjoys incorporating song imagery or lyrics into her fictional work. The anthology ‘Stars’ was a project in which celebrated science fictional authors were asked to contribute stories based on Ian’s discography. She is currently working on a sci-fi project in which a rock star comes back to life. That marriage of fiction meets music is enticing. Patti Smith wrote ‘Just Kids’ about her relationship in Manhattan, in the 70s, with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. The post-punk performer used poetic imagery to convey chronological events. Smith had kept diaries since she was a young girl and had promised to document this relationship. She had hoped to write a moving story that was readable and won the 2010 National Book Award for Nonfiction. Nick Hornby has become one of my favorite authors, thanks to you, John. In some ways he appears to be a frustrated writer who really would love to be a rock musician. If that is the case, though, he uses that frustration to create some highly original works with many musically-inclined characters. You say, “musicians don’t tend to write a lot of fiction.” Conversely, how many fiction writers write convincingly about the world of music? Part of Nick’s expertise, of course, is that he is not a working musician or rock star and is able to inject this magical world with a grain of coarse, rock salt. His book, ‘Naked Julia’ goes so far as to have several obsessive, rock-influenced characters. A list-maker, Hornby goes so far as to publish great, exhaustive lists of songs that we must hear. I appreciate his frustration, yet I can’t help but wonder why the man won’t simply purchase a ukulele and try his hand at a simple ballad. Oscar Hijuelos grew up in Cuba and the streets of New York and enjoyed the multi-layered, lush strains of his native music. In his book, ‘Mambo Kings Sing Songs of Love’ he describes how music is created amidst the most ordinary circumstances; how rhythms are conjured even when workers convene at stockyards. His current novel, ‘Beautiful Maria of My Soul’, picks up where ‘Mambo Kings’ leaves off. The first book features a song one of the protagonists composes for a beautiful, lost love. The second readdresses that ballad. Was Hijuelos a frustrated musician or did he ultimately lose himself in the dreamy world of his virtuosic characters? Keith Richards has recently written ‘Life’ which is an autobiography. I realize you don’t feel that this genre is up there with fiction per se, but I challenge that assertion. I think the autobiography, for too long, has been considered the bastard child of literature. I don’t see why this form of writing has to take such a beating. It is still a story, isn’t it? It does have form, style and character, doesn’t it? It does seem that we have flown haphazardly from lyrical analysis of famous songs to literature without much fanfare. We can certainly get away with this, however, because the year is coming to a close, and because Janis will support us by proclaiming that “writing is writing.” But, is it? I’m not convinced, still. I have always assumed that songwriters have much shorter attention spans than authors, which is why they prefer writing three- minute pieces. But, I also think that when a musician reads literature, he/she can’t help but illuminate the passages with personal harmonies and dissonances. As I plowed through 'Anna Karenina' recently I couldn’t help but wonder why so few composers have chosen to turn her harrowing story into a tempestuous symphony. Is it possible, John, that a musician hears a book, when perhaps others see it? Also, which literary characters could be honoured through song? JOHN It’s not really the case that I believe that autobiography isn’t up there with fiction as a genre. There have, of course, been some brilliant autobiographies, both musical and otherwise. Patti Smith’s ‘Just Kids’, which I read on a memorable train journey to London last March, is, as you say, such a book. I also really liked Ray Davies ‘X-Ray’, but both these books transcend the traditional rock autobiography. ‘Just Kids’ is an epitaph to a dead lover and also to the lost age of New York of the 1970s, while ‘X-Ray’ hilariously fuses fiction with non-fiction and has a naïve journalist of the future going to interview the elderly Davies, who has become in old age a nasty and sleazy old man. There is, of course, a lot of really bad fiction too, but as a genre I would suggest that autobiography is the genre, however, which is the subject to more abuse. The issue of music and novels is really a topic for an RSR debate or several in itself. To sum things up briefly though I think rock music should really serve as a microcosm for life, and again I feel where a lot of fiction books set in the musical world go wrong is that like many music autobiographies they simply turn into lurid, but dull Jackie Collins-style lists of drugs taken and girls bagged. Of course that goes on a lot in the rock world. Ask Keith Richards, but for those of us listening to music while paying mortgages and maybe bringing up children or looking after elderly parents it needs to be something more than that. ‘Hornby’s ‘Julia, Naked’ was brilliant as, while its main character is a musician, it was as much about the illusory nature of myth and fame. His first novel ‘High Fidelity’ is perhaps even better. Its central character may be a second hand record shop owner, but it is equally a book about obsessionin generall. I also really recommend, Mark Hodkinson’s ‘The Last Mad Surge of Youth’, which published last year is probably the best book I have read in the music fiction genre. It is about two Northern lads, who form a rock band in the early 1980’s. One develops stage fright and drops out, settling for a dull existence working on a local newspaper. The other becomes a star and twenty years later they meet up again. The story of the rock band is, however, secondary. You never read about the band in action beyond their initial disastrous few gigs. It is much more a meditation on middle age and the disillusionment that that brings. There have been a few songs that have notably used literature as a backdrop. Norwegian playwright Ibsen provided the inspiration for John Cale’s ‘Hedda Gabler’ and Broken Records’ ‘If Eilert Loevborg Wrote A Song, It Would Sound Like This’ is about the alcoholic suicide in the same play. The Cure’s early 1978 single, ‘Killing An Arab’ meanwhile took its inspiration from Albert Camus’ existential novel, ‘The Outsider’, in which its central character, Mersault, an Algerian, seemingly cold-bloodedly shoots a man. The thought of ‘Anna Karenina’ being adapted into a musical form does however, scare me. ‘Anna Karenina: The Musical or ‘Anna Karenina: The Rock Opera’? No thanks. “Writing is writing” and it is worthy of more respect than that. LISA Oh, I don’t mean, ‘Tommy’ or ‘Oklahoma'. I’m talking symphony orchestra with timpani solos and the moan of a distant cello. But, it doesn’t look like I’ve got a prayer with this one, John.