Depends on the artist, depends on the song. Truth does tend to be stranger than fiction, though, so flights of fancy have to be pretty darn good to measure up.
Wallowing in a really fine breakup song can be exquisite, whether I know the facts behind the story or not.
Some of the best and worst songs I ever hear are breakup songs. Writing from personal experience does give you an edge in providing the ring of truth, but that's not what makes it interesting or moving. To be that, someone needs to have processed the experience and come out of it with some kind of perspective and slant. Like if you come out of the experience having discovered something about human nature that you hadn't realized before, and can actually communicate that insight. Rare. Or if the experience enforced something about the world that you had heard many times, but hadn't taken to heart. A good writer can tell a moving breakup story that has an unspoken "it just goes to show you" in it, something you've heard but is being illustrated fresh. Even a worn aphorism like "you don't miss the water till the well runs dry," which so many breakup songs boil down to, can be fresh with the right kind of story behind it.
I can remember when rumours about James Taylor's "Fire & Rain" were flying about my school when that album came out in 1970. By the time we kids were finished we had him languishing in a mental institution over a bad relationship. It added to the intrigue and mystique of the artist and his so-called life, to the minds of young school kids in any case.
I have no idea what the true story was, as I've not heard him directly speak of it. There are websites dedicated to interpreting the real meaning behind this song. As far as I know, there is only one interview with Rolling Stone where James himself gives us some insight.
Now that I'm an adult with some sense of the intricacies of how real life relationships can rise and fall, and of how the artistic mind works to create, I've resolved to keep my distance when it comes to listening to (and believing) much of what the rumor mill cranks out. The end product of the artist's expression is what I am meant to hear and appreciate.
The stories we like to tell ourselves lie somewhere between the truth and memory.
Even when we hear an artist interviewed, telling their sometimes tragic story from their personal viewpoint, it is only half of the story. With respect to everyone involed, is it really any of my business? Their personal pain is evident in their artistic expression, and that's really all I need to know.
As a songwriter for over 35 years, it is hard for me to answer this as just a listener. I use personal experience in most of everything I write. Sometimes what I write is very factual, and sometimes I use past experiences to color a piece of fiction. It is very rare that I try to create something with no personal experience in the writing because I feel it sounds very contrived. I do prefer those sad songs and write plenty of them, so I would say I am a fan of that personal approach to writing.
I like writing songs that get me chicks and beer.
C'mon Ann VerWiebe, you can't be seriously suggesting that Richard Thompson, (or for that matter Linda Thompson) hasn't produced any 'new music' since their break-up!
I saw Richard at Newcastle, England just last month - a quite outstanding performance (with double bass player Danny Thompson - no relation), and almost the entire set was made up of break-up/broken love songs, or songs that were post Richard/Linda break-up, with the odd 'flight of fancy' (see Jim Pipkin comment) such as Vincent Black Lightning 1952.
Most contemporary writers and singers that I listen to, including those newly introduced to me on Folkalley.com, seem to be writing from a 'reflective' standpoint i.e. from their personal experiences, good or bad, past or present. A much smaller number write in search of some Utopian ideal, and fewer still write or sing self-centred songs of hope or love that are in any way futuristic (with the possible exception of traditional spirituals, hymns and those by the odd zealot).
And some songwriters seem to thirive on the miseries that life levels at them - where would Loudon Wainwright III be without life's traumas to write about. The only futuristic/forward looking song that he has written, so far as I can recall, is about the certaintly of ending up in a graveyard. Yet it's all compelling stuff, and most people would find something in those types of song with which they can identify.
Anyway, breakups are not always bad. I haven't stopped singing since shortly after my first wife ran off with our next door neighbour - the initial welling up of emotion being initiated at the loss of a neighbour who was willing to lend me his lawnmower!
Thanks and I hope the Cheryl Wheeler concert surpasses your expectations!
ps, tell Jim Blum not to pronounce Dougie Maclean's name as 'Doogie'- but, more correctly, as 'Duggy'- or there could be a Scottish uprising!
Bummer about the loss of lawnmower privileges, Tony. The least the guy could have done was trade you straight up. Have you had a chance to catch the Rise Band at any shows over there?
Thank goodness for those obsconding neighbors and wives, and dead skunks in the middle of the road!
Tony B... you are not alone... I feel your pain...
once while visiting the U.K., I was seduced
by a sweet little -
"Mountfield red Princess, Black and Decker"
"My favorite, mowing machine" !!!
Mine just took all of the anvils...left the broken one.
Chris C... - you should write more of that stuff. And you're so perceptive - that neighbour did in fact have a Black and Decker mower (green, as it happens), and I am now the proud owner of not one, but two Mountfield mowers - one of which is red! (With Mountfields, I think you have to look out for the ones with Honda engines - they're a better deal, long term). From now on, my red Mountfield could only be known as Princess. I think there's a new thread emerging here.
JL B.... - I can put you in touch with a good Blacksmith, but if there's a broken heart involved, you need a folk singer.
Jim P..... - Thanks for the empathy. But it's like Joan Kennedy suggests above, break-up stories that have a 'it just goes to show you' element or a different slant are those that we like to wallow in. The difference is not only in what the slant is, but who it is that's telling the story.
Take my Divorce Lawyer, for example. Here was a young woman who, every day of her working life had to listen to miserable stories of break-ups from distraught clients from all walks of life, always feeling that whatever the outcome of the case, it's a 'lose-lose' situation. No wonder she never married! Then she is asked to open 'just another file' for me. We sort out my divorce, split the chattels (not including any lawnmowers) and before I know it (and after paying the bill) I'm marrying my Lawyer - the present Mrs B. She reckons that when she met yours truly, she knew instinctively that she had met the man she wanted to marry, but I think myself that it happened because I sent her a tape of one of those rare songs that Joan K... refers to - 'Another Train' by Pete Morton.
Anyway, the Lawyer gave up handling divorce work shortly after getting married, and has now progressed to be a Judge!
Well, it just goes to show you, doesn't it Joan!
So guys, if you're stuck in a rut with a sour-faced trout, look for the oportunities. Find an obliging neighbour and decent young Lawyer. Forego the lawnmower.
Does anyone have any experience of mulching mowers? I've been thinking of getting one.
Thanks all, and Regards
ps, Jim P... I haven't seen the Rise Band live in Concert, but they're on my watch list. Their singer Debbie Dawson is a bit Stevie Nicks, I think.
THAT is a great break-up story, lawnmower and all!
Tony..thanks. Well put.
(smile) I've taken "another train" a while back now, and moved on. Actually, he did me a favor when he left...that dark cloud just *poof* vanished from my life! Amazing.
Life had been very exciting with him, but really, I could use a lot less of that kind of excitement!
And now I'm alive again, and thriving.
Now I understand things/life better, and as a result, all of those poignant folk songs now make sense to me. I can appreciate the bittersweet, and cherish it...plus, think I'm finally growing up.
Never thought of it that way before, but a good folk singer IS kind of like having a good doctor..lol.
And "the doctor is in". (smile)
I chucked the old gas guzzler mower and traded it in for an electric mulcher for a song. Mulching's good for the lawn here (San Antonio/So. Texas heat) .
"Don't Bag It" is the buz phrase here.
With the cord, it's a bit like vaccuming though, and maintenance is a breeze.
But if you're on a ranch or something...maybe a Bush Hog might be just the thing. Same principal, just on a grand scale.
My search for a shorter, lower maintenance grass is always on. Now, if I could get what's growing in the cracks on the sidewalk to take over the lawn...hmmm....sounds like fodder for another aligorical folk song.
JL, have you tried Zoysia grass? We've used it with some luck, very lo-water, lo-maint, but a BEAR to put in, since you have to plant it in "plugs" and let it grow together for a year or so.
Yeah...that is Zoysia growing in the cracks of the sidewalk...the only remnants of my experimental planting. The bermuda came back and killed it all.
Sometimes I go out there at night, barefooted, just to stick my foot on the little zoysia strip in the sidewalk and dream about having a whole lawn full of the stuff to roll about in!
Ahh - a solution. You watered it too much. Zoysia needs about 1/3 the water of Bermuda.
Jim, watering not a problem...we also had a drought and heat wave that year. I even lost a few drought tolerant trees. Had even planted a recommended variety Zoysia for this area.
But your suggestion makes sense, and you've encouraged me to replant it. Zoysia is so dense and lovely and short and intensly green. I'd hardly have to mow if I could ever get it established.
Tony B, Thank you for the heads-up engine tip
mate, I'll keep an eye out.
By the way, if J. Pipkin fleshes out the rest of
(lawn mower version) 52' Vincent Black Lightning,
and parlay's it into a big parody hit, then he owes both you and I a beer, no? What say, Jim!
Also, "Free legal advice, a Loving wife AND
T W O, Mountfields" !!! "Tony... You Da Man" !
Just to let others in on the joke, the parody is of the lines...
- red hair and black leather -
- my favorite color scheme -
Chris C... - All that AND a dog named Dylan! (He can't write songs like Mr Zimmerman, but he's certainly as good a singer!).
JL B... and Jim P... - thanks for the tips on mowers and grass. It's a bit wet here in the English Lake District where I live for low water grasses. More likely to get couch grass here! (wetland grasses). Our patch is about 3 acres in all, but some of it is still building site as my day job these days is to build a house for me, the Judge and the Dog. The rest is part pasture, part lawn - a dilemma when choosing a mower. I've got more work to do outside this coming summer, but being at home all day does allow Dylan and I to listen to Folkalley.com uninterrupted! (Replay of the Solas Concert is on at the moment - great stuff!)
Take care all, and thanks for the advice!
Truth or fiction in love songs... scottish uprisings... lawnmower envy... a dog named Dylan... spontaneous blog disintegration... Another Train, song... dead skunks... chicks and beer... JB L, goes "electric" in San Antonio.
... lordy, lordy, all we need now is for Pete Seeger himself to join this blog with a simple comment such as... "Have Axe... Will Travel" !!!
Folks, ya just can't make this stuff up !
Hey, steady on Chris - lets keep some decorum here - you should know that grandpa Pete doesn't recall THAT axe incident! So, it may never have happened!
Anyway, it's not the Dog's fault he's called Dylan. It's the Judge's. Given a free hand I would have called the dog LUATH - after one of the 'Twa Dogs' that Robert Burns wrote about some 200 years ago. But the Judge didn't think it was a suitable name for a pet. How times have changed! Burns himself had kept a dog named Luath - a working dog. Our dog was advertised as a working dog. We thought he would be useful, since we're building our house. We bought him from a Hill Farmer (Hillbilly?) up on the Pennines. Is Hillbilly a derogatory term? Sorry if it is. (If you're a Hillbilly and you're reading this, you're not a Hillbilly!). Anyway, I've been building this house for three years now, and I haven't had one days work out of that dog - he just sits and watches (and listens to folkalley.com!).
We're off to see June Tabor tonight - now there's a voice in a million!
cheers
Dylan must be in management.
Americans may not know that the Pennines is a mountain range right down the middle of England that has some very remote farms and very rural people, just like the hillbillies here in the US.
Jack, you HAVE to be right! And Dylan must be a pretty sharp manager at that, because of the two of us, the one with the MBA is pushing the wheelbarrow!
Hill Billy started as a derogatory, along with Ridge Runner, but of late it has become kind of a badge of honor because we have so few of the old self-reliant hill folk left.
Now they're wearing pink stretch pants in the diet food aisle of WalMart, like everyone else.
Yeah, Jack...my English side comes from the Yorkshire/Lancashire border up Pennine Way...little place called Bracewell. Spent some time in Malham in the Yorkshire Dales (lovely place) at the Buck Inn and walked around the Cove and visited some Blacksmith shops in and around the area some years ago. Seems the only ones who can afford, these days, to be craftstmen are those well educated, with disposible incomes from their "big city" jobs. Some pretty sophisticated country folk up that way now days. They are living their dream amongst all of the sheep farmers.
Jack - Next dog can be Luath. They do better in two's, don't they?
My greyhounds will come to the desk when certain songs come on Folk Alley. One likes fiddle music, the other seems to like tender hearted lost-love songs. Dogs have a life of their own, evidently!
And Tony B - You are a very lucky man...everywhere I'd gone in the UK everyone would ask me, "Have you been to the Lake District yet? No? Ohhhh, you must do...it's SO lovely!"
(I meant Tony B with the Luath thing..I was distracted by Chris C's hilarity!)
Chris, you should put it all together and write a has-it-all-gone-wrong song!
My wife and I spent our honeymoon in the UK back in 1986 and we spent a few weeks driving all over England and Wales. After staying a day or two in York, an English Yorkshireman friend suggested we drive sttaight across the Pennines instead of taking the motorways. It was a truly awesome drive, and a wee bit scary at times. Some of those old stone farmhouses we saw up there looked like they were built in the middle ages and most of them seemed to be occupied.
I can promise you that there are still some very remote locations where farmers still live up there.
Tony, our cats and dog definitely like music. Especially when I pull out the guitar. They will come sit close when I play. The dog sometimes gets very excited, because when the weather permits I take her for a walk with her leash attached to my belt so that my hands are free to play the guitar.
We used to have a cat named Groucho who absolutely loved my guitar. He would sit right up against it when I played so that he could feel the vibrations and would purr to the music. He also would sometimes walk past the guitar on the stand and decide to go up to it and pluck the strings with his teeth. He got a rude awakening once when he broke a string and it stopped that habit. After that he was content to let me play and he would sit next to the guitar.
okay...now that LAST adaptation of cat-plucking-guitar-strings belongs in "The Mothers of Invention" blog!
Since I'll be on the road a la mode for a spell travelling the rual southeast, I may miss the finale of this engaging conversation. I'd just like to thank all involved for one of the most enjoyable bog... I mean blog experiances I've ever been a party to... (I can almost hear a cheery chorus of all your voices exclaming... " whatever "! )
Well, just enough time left to pack and rewatch that, ultimate travelers guide to the southlands... "Deliverence" ... and I'm off.
Cheers!
Chris C - Be careful out there! And just so you know..thanks for the belly laughs!
JL B... You're fortunate in one respect with your ancestry - Bracewell is in Lancashire - you don't want to be pinning yourself to Yorkshire, in my view, as the saying here is that a Yorkshireman is just a Scotsman stripped of his generosity! (Be careful what colour Roses you grow!)
You're right in that there has been an influx of Townies into areas like the Yorkshire Dales. It's the same in or around just about all of our National Parks, and especially around the Lake District. But it's not all bad. Those people (incomers, we call them) do tend to push up the property prices, which makes it more difficult for the locals to stay in the places where they and their families have lived for many years. That has been recognised and is being addressed, in part, through Planning Regulations (for homes) that require 'affordable homes' with Local Occupancy clauses. As I see it though, there are two big positives. The first is that incomers do have the cash to renovate and breath new life into what would otherwise be derelict buildings. The second is that those incomers are often those with a passion for rejuvenating rural crafts, cabinet makers, blacksmiths and the like. (There is possibly a third positive, if the guy that we bought our dog from is anything to go by, and that's that the incomers might start to improve the stock - and I'm not talking about the pedigree of the sheep or sheep dogs! Believe me, there are people up there with three eyes!).
There are also new rural industries being created. For example, there groups of Folk Singers (would you believe that) setting out their stall bringing in all kinds of non indigenous crafts - guitar makers and so on. In fact folk singer Maddy Prior lives somewhere at the North End of the Pennines and runs singing workshops from what I believe was once a redundant farmstead.
The building that I'm working on was an almost complete ruin, and must go back some 500 years or so. We're not incomers, in that the Judges family have lived and worked for generations in the blacksmiths shop in the next building (hasnt been used for almost 100 years, but the forge and bellows are still in place!). Mind you, I think the Judge is much better suited to pushing a pen that pushing the 6 foot shaft of a set of bellows!
Jack S... I'm glad you enjoyed your honeymoon. I take it that your guitar strings were NOT made of catgut?? I feel for Groucho!
Jim P... - Thanks for the advice on the use of the term Hillbilly - can't imagine them in pink stretch pants though!!!
Chris C... Have a good trip, and thanks for the transatlantic chat!!
It does looks like this blog has been hijacked. Supposed to have been on how to keep your woman/man and has turned into how to keep cats and dogs! But as the saying goes here, the difference between keeping a dog and keeping a woman is that you can lock a dog up at night and it's still pleased to see you in the morning!!!
Maybe the Folkalley.com web site should have a 'Coffee House' where people can just pop up to say hello, and those who want to pursue the blog subject aren't edged out. Might give rise to new threads and keep clutter of other blogs. The technology might need tweeking, but it can't be rocket science.
Nevertheless, it's been a good grin. Take care all.
ps The Judge and I saw that seasoned folk singer June Tabor last night - I don't have enough superlatives in my vocabulary to describe what I experienced. Fairport Convention are playing near here on Monday. That's always a good gig - and great entertainment with an audience of superannuated folkes. We like to look out for the occasional comb-over or syrup in the crowd! Me? almost as bald as Dave Pegg (Fairport's base player!).
pps sorry, 'syrup' is derived from Cockney Rhyming Slang - Syrup of Fig = Wig! (rug, you may say)
Tony B - Ahhhh, so perhaps Catalina Magdalina Lupistina Walkadina Hoka Poka Loka is from the Dales, and not from the Smokies of Tennessee, as I had previously thought! (I'm sure someone has made up a verse about her having three eyes in her head.) Blame it on the lead poisoning..I've seen some of the pics of the locals around the mines...gruesome.
The only odd thing I can say about the Bracewell/Barnoldswick area is that it has witch crossing signs everywhere...but the stories of how the locals kept tearing down that Norman night's church he'd vowed to build if God "let" him survive the crusades...priceless! He'd build it up and overnight, they'd tear it down. He finally gave up and went home. "Not in my village!", I'd imagine them saying.
Yeah..nice people at the Blacksmith's shop in Settle...wife is from the Lake District, a fine repousse craftsman in her own right, and his Da is somthing of a national treasure. They even let me try my hand at the forge (I'm not a Blacksmith, but I did pay attention for 10 years married to one)...made a nice Shaker-style hook for my wall. A good memory.
Actually, I've found this diverted blog a help. That Folk Alley coffee house thing sounds appealing, and so glad to know that the artisan community is growing and thriving these days in the rural areas in your neck of the woods.
And the nice things about dogs is, they want to be by your side in the morning, whether you locked them in or out. The cats just kinda like your body heat...but that's another allegorical relationship story in the making!
And if it weren't for singer/songwriters wearing their hearts on their CDs...some of us might still be trying to figure out what it all means, stuck in the mire of self doubt and self pity, thinking we're all alone in this. So, thank you for paving the way for recovery, y'all.
And Chris C - all this will be catalogued in the Folk Alley Blog archives...you can catch up when you return from your southerlands tour and not miss a thing!
..but something tells me, Chris - 'twon't be the same without you!
Tony B. - That was David & Rachel Clements who had taken over the Settle Blacksmith's shop from Alf Limmer, who retired after 44 years, in 1993.
As far as I know, the Clemets are still there. Real nice couple and involved in the arts/crafts scene.
And, uhm...would you please refresh my mind about the roses comment.... red is for____ and white is for___??
Hi JL B...
Yes, Settle is not too far from here (the picturesque Settle to Carlisle railway line passes a few miles to the East of us). I haven't been to the Blacksmiths Shop there, but I'll bear that in mind.
As far as the Roses go, Red for Lancashire, White for Yorkshire - have a look at this link http://www.lancashirevillages.com/redrose/
Ann, Linda, Gracias por vuestro trabajo. Folk Alley
Radio. La musica que enlaza al mundo en a una PAZ que une a los pueblos del planeta tierra. El Amor que DIOS puso en el corazón del hombre.
La musica que hace grande al espiritu del hombre.
Que invade mi alma y me hace amar en lo más profundo del ser humano. La musica.
Gracias. Thanks you
Convengo con usted, Antonio, que el callejón popular hace un gran servicio a la humanidad. El callejón popular ayuda a hacerme enterado de otros a través del mundo, ensamblado por nuestro amor del lenguaje común - música. Todos hablamos ese lenguaje común. Paz.
But does it translate American into English??
(good to see you back again, Jim P.)
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Wearing Your Heart on Your CD
