And then there were my thoughts...
Writing is writing (bad or good). Some people write lyrics which lean more
towards poetics and some write them leaning more towards the short story; some
write them like a prose-poem some write them based on the music itself,
some... well, you get the idea.
With music, you can get away with a lot more. Somehow, music can make even the
worst written words sound almost bearable. My opinion: it has something to do
with the medium of exhibition and the emotional sway of (good) music. It
intoxicates and blinds in some ways. Obviously, you don't get that when you
read it off the page or at (most) spoken word events. You get nothing but the
words.
I haven't read his piece yet, but: If Isaac can write a good piece of fiction
I hardly think it'd negate his integrity in any way/shape/form, rather I think
it'd confirm his talent as an artist. This, because he doesn't have the music
backing him up.
...and then, that was it.
J.
"Everything has been figured out except how to live."
-Sartre
On Fri, 17 Dec 1999, Doug Marvin wrote:
w/r/t the story that isaac wrote for kutie sometime ago and that someone
mentioned on the list. thought it was complete shit, and i find this
comforting:
why this is good: isaac is the undisputed master of the rock lyric -
they're good to read and they're good to hear which is a good trick that
very few can pull off. and they're infused with a ragged "i'm baring my
ugly soul" kind of honesty that nobody can match because nobody else has
quite that mixture of redneck and intelligence in his/her blood. if isaac
could hop into a separate lit genre (are lyrics a lit genre?) and pull it
off equally well, it would be like a charade, like he was just playing a
role, thus negating the honesty which i find crucial to my enjoyment of
his songs. instead, he writes a story every bit as crappy as i would
expect that loser that sings those songs to write. if it was a good
story, then i couldn't like the songs as much, somehow.
