Subject: Lyrical honesty
To: howie@metalfistrockout.com
From: cory@sadsadprettyfingerpicking.org
This is a really cool interview, I think. I especially like the part at the very bottom about lyrical honesty (the subject matter of “Be Right” was practically made for me!)
Pitchfork – Wale Talks Debut Album Details, Dave Sitek Collaboration
Subject: RE: Lyrical honesty
To: cory@sadsadprettyfingerpicking.org
From: howie@metalfistrockout.com
sounds like quite a cat.
there’s a lot of gray surrounding concepts like “honesty” and “fiction,” and i reject the idea that they’re mutually exclusive; that the only honesty is physical fact.
fiction and poetry have a reality that is meaningful, regardless of their attachment to the movement of atoms in time.
now, then – people are justified in feeling misled, if someone like rick ross makes claims or implications about or in their art that turn out to be false. i’m not trying to excuse that, or draw equivalence.
“…Boots” never literally happened, but it’s got a lot of honest stuff in it i think. including contradictions; multiple perspectives on an event that can each invoke empathy, even though they exclude each other. fiction may be a more honest way for me to explore this territory, in terms of actually communicating something real with listeners. -h
Subject: RE: Lyrical honesty
To: howie@metalfistrockout.com
From: cory@sadsadprettyfingerpicking.org
I agree: I’m fine with art blending fact and fiction in almost any ratio. And I think there’s no need to say, “Well, some of this is true, and some of this is false,” etc. I think you can just make a piece of art and see what truths it’s able to address without wondering or caring if it’s being wholly “honest.” Art that aimed for the exposition of the literal physical truth would be pretty boring.
As you said, you shouldn’t write a non-fiction book about how you climbed K2 when you actually didn’t, but that’s pretty apparent.
The professor who taught the grad fiction-writing class that I took described fiction-writing as “telling the truth through lies.” I think that’s what art is supposed to do, and that’s what I think something like “Boots” should do.
Furthermore, even if we tried to fully distinguish fact from fiction, it would be impossible; our perception of a real event might be more shaky and less real than a dream we had.
Subject: RE: Lyrical honesty
To: cory@sadsadprettyfingerpicking.org
From: howie@metalfistrockout.com
indeed; let’s blog this!
so, what’s your take on the rick ross business, or any case where an artist is caught mis-representing the blend of fact and fiction in their work? it seems to happen a lot in hip-hop, where i think credibility is emphasized more than in other music.
does credibility play a legitimate role in our enjoyment of hip-hop? (or other music?) does it play a legitimate role in our aesthetic evaluation of such music?
it occurs to me that some jazz musicians have faced a similar standard of credibility.
is there a standard for disclosure? of course, the second we say yes, it creates the opportunity for an artist to violate it artistically… so what if an artist wanted to blend fact and fiction in their work and avoid misleading listeners; how should they go about accomplishing that? -h
Subject: RE: Lyrical honesty
To: howie@metalfistrockout.com
From: cory@sadsadprettyfingerpicking.org
I think it would be easy to say that a piece of art should be judged by itself, rather than in any context or with any background knowledge, but I don’t think that’s true or even possible.
During a grad class, I heard about these paintings that were being sold that were supposedly painted by a five-year-old, and people were buying them because for a five-year-old, they were amazing. As it turned out, the dude who was painting them was actually 45 or something, and everyone who bought the paintings felt boned-over (I think that’s how the story goes). It seems to me that intuitively, these people had a right to feel screwed, and this guy was able to sell more paintings by lying about who he was and how they paintings were made.
Maybe there’s two different scales to judge art by: one scale might be, “How does this art compare with every other piece of art like it? Is it better, worse, so-so, etc?” The other, broader scale might be, “Considering all of the relevant facts regarding this piece art, is it any good?” One of the relevant facts might be the piece of art’s integrity, or whatever you want to call it. As I said, I think it’s just about impossible to objectively weight a piece of art in relation to other pieces of art without considering external factors, so I think the second scale is more realistic.
I think the big, murky issue is the expectations that people have. For example, I expect most writers/musicians/painters to distort and change reality for the sake of art. Maybe if you were kind of naive and listened to Fountains of Wayne for the first time, you’d think that all of their lyrics were literally biographical: “Wow, he flew a plane for American Airlines and then got fired for reading High Times. Weird!” But most everyone sees that it’s storytelling, and FoW would be the first to tell you they’re just making stuff up.
But with rap, it’s more serious, and it’s more about respect and cred, right? I think a rapper lying to me in order to get my respect seems just as bad as you lying to me to get my respect. I mean obviously, there are countless differences between you and the dudes from Clipse (or maybe not?), but if you told me a made-up story about how you saved everyone from a sinking ship so that I would think you were cooler, that’s wrong, correct?
Regarding disclosure/presentation: I tink that the best way to blend fact/fiction without being misleading is just to present it appropriately. I think if it’s done well, people will know. I know that’s incredibly vague and not at all helpful, but I think that it’s true.
Here’s another distiction with rap that’s important, I think: a rapper might rap about shooting people when he has actually never held a loaded gun or something like that. But it’s usually never presented as fictional storytelling: usually, it’s presented as hard fact. Maybe that’s the difference: while rap music is technically art/music, the lyrics are mostly presented as the truth and maybe something kind of separate from art. With pure art, there are no rules, but with certain types of art (biographies, some rap songs?), there are rules (i.e., don’t make a bunch of shit up).
Thoughts?