Art and Argument

“Any authentic work of art must start an argument between the artist and his audience.”

- Rebecca West

This sentiment is one to which I want to pay close attention as I write a second book. Since the author provides one half of the conversation and the reader provides the second half, I would do well to create an interesting exchange.

Unmerited Grace

The last ten minutes of a Steve Taylor interview on the Cultivated podcast  from April 15, 2017, describes the tension felt by Steve Taylor and a great many other artists.

Interviewer: “I want to talk about the impulse to be an artist, the impulse to make these things and send them out into the world. How would you describe that for yourself? … It takes a certain audacity to say, ‘I’m going to play music … or here is all this money, go make a film.’ Where does that audacity come from for you?” …

Steve: “If you were a totally well-rounded individual you wouldn’t feel the need to get on stage in the first place.” …

Interviewer: “Richard Pryor’s quote, ‘Happy well-adjusted people don’t get into this business.’”

Steve: “What makes me want to make things and show them to people? It is there and it is probably not a good thing.… Where you wake up every day and think ‘what am I going to do to get people to work for me and what am I going to do to get people to like me’ and it is all about self-promotion? It is part of the job and you can’t not do it. But it doesn’t square well with our Christian faith.… Making stuff is good, it is a high calling and we need more followers of Jesus to be doing it as well, but it has a dark side…. It will never be enough.”

I do not have definitive answers to the questions Steve Taylor is raising, but I do think there must be more to this. Taylor says that the self-promotion necessary to be successful as an artist “doesn’t square well with our Christian faith.” He may be right there. Jesus never promoted himself, he promoted a message. Perhaps that is part of the difference. The message can be something as simple as wanting to entertain the masses with movies or songs or it may be something more profound. Taylor has important messages for the world. Sometimes his message is, “Christian, give your head a shake, do you really think it would be alright for a person to blow-up an abortion clinic?” Sometimes it is much subtler like the messages in the song, “A Life Preserved.” One of my favourite lines from that song is “Gratitude’s too cheap a word for all you’ve reassembled, from a spirit broken and unnerved, a life preserved.” The message of this song is worthy of promotion.

Perhaps the artist could leave the promotion to others. Agents and producers can promote an artist without some of the difficulties (of course, they will have their own difficulties because they make their living from the success of the individual). Fans can be the greatest promoters of the artist; but how does one get the word out to the fan without a certain degree of self-promotion? Steve Taylor has created a great description of this with a video produced by Splint Entertainment called “The Future of the Music Industry.” The video reminds me of the many brilliant songs that toil in obscurity because they never got radio play or fan support or any kind of promotion. The song, movie, painting, poem, book, or other work of art may be a phenomenal work, but if no one knows about it, it will not be recognized for what it is. How does one get the message out? How does one make a living and continue to do art?

Annie Dillard, a writer who has achieved a degree of success, would likely be known to a great many more people and be considered a bigger success if she had done more self-promotion. Madeline L’Engle nearly gave up writing completely. The Wikipedia article about L'Engle quotes her as saying, “‘With all the hours I spent writing, I was still not pulling my own weight financially.’ Soon she discovered both that she could not give it up and that she had continued to work on fiction subconsciously.”[1]

As I reach the end of this commentary, I am left with many more questions than answers. I struggle to find a brilliant conclusion that will sum it all up and put a bow on the gift I wish to leave for the artists of the world. Maybe one day I will return and add a post-script that solves the problem and answers the questions. For now, I leave us with 123 words from Annie Dillard, which, at the pace with which Dillard claims,[2] likely took her the better part of a day to write. In this paragraph, she describes the beauty of writing and one almost hears her say that the emotion is all the reward an author needs.

At its best, the sensation of writing is that of any unmerited grace. It is handed to you, but only if you look for it. You search, you break your heart, your back, your brain, and then - and only then - it is handed to you. From the corner of your eye you see motion. Something is moving through the air and headed your way. It is a parcel bound in ribbons and bows; it has two white wings. It flies directly at you; you can read your name on it. If it were a baseball, you would hit it out of the park. It is that one pitch in a thousand you see in slow motion; its wings beat slowly as a hawk's.[3]

I hear Steve Taylor's voice say, “Yeah, but my family’s gotta eat!”

Works Cited:

Dillard, Annie. The Writing Life. New York: Harper Perennial, 1990.

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[1] "Madeleine L'Engle". Awards & Honors: 2004 National Humanities Medalist. National Endowment for the Humanities. Retrieved 2013-06-19.

[2] See her book, The Writing Life.

[3] (Dillard 1990, 75)

Beauty Left the Room

Charlie Peacock is a gifted song-writer and jazz player known best for his song “In the Light,” recorded by himself and by DC Talk. One of his lesser known songs is called “Beauty Left the Room.” The lyrics follow here.

Beauty Left the Room

(Lyrics and Music by Charlie Peacock)

(Listen while you read the lyrics)

The sky had a heartache
The truth couldn’t wait to slip out
And miss little-black-checkered-pants
Was clutching a new Coach bag

Then Beauty left the room
Beauty left the room
And the smell of America took its place
When beauty left the room

I wanna go home
Back to the house by the river
Live in the time-honored way
Owing no debt but love

When beauty leaves the room
When beauty leaves the room
And the smell of America takes its place
Oh when, Beauty leaves the room

You’ll know it when you see it
When you smell it, when you feel it, smells like
Burnt toast and repetition, Ah the repetition
All alone with a mission
We’ve got so good at saving face

The sky had a heartache
The truth couldn’t wait to slip out
And miss little-black-checkered-pants
Was clutching a new Coach bag

Then Beauty left the room
Beauty left the room
And the smell of America took its place
When beauty left the room
Beauty left the room

You can rise before the morning sun
End the day and not be done
That’s the way it is in the work of finding courage
You gotta ask yourself
Hey what’s the rush, what’s the hurry?

Here I am again, with my pencil and my paper
Listening, for a sign, for a word from my Maker
The sky had a heartache
The truth couldn’t wait to slip out
And miss little-black-checkered-pants
Was clutching a new Coach bag

In one interview, Peacock spoke of these lyrics and said that they were mostly about the smell of America, the materialism of Florida, nice Coach bags, girls in short skirts, and coffee. However, I will take a turn at interpreting the words of this song. My philosophy is that a songwriter has many meanings in his head as he writes a song, some are known to him and a few are not. Of course I am also speaking of the songs that I have had the good fortune to write. Others can always interpret a song in its relevant culture and come up with further meanings inherent in the lyrics, even if the author would not interpret the song precisely that way.

“Beauty Left the Room,” sounds like a song about what happens when we stop recognizing and appreciating beauty. The first stanza speaks of the beauty of a sky as it is about to give way to lightning and rain and the beauty of a woman in black checkered pants with a Coach bag in hand. These are things that need to be recognized for their beauty and the author is very much aware of these things in his view.

The chorus speaks of what happens when we let go of beauty and of what takes the place in the vacuum that is left behind. The “smell of America” is what replaces beauty, and one gets the sense that it is not a pleasant aroma. Verse two is like lines from a Wendell Berry book as Peacock is thinking nostalgically and wishes for times past when he lived a simpler life and owed no one anything but the debt of love. The next stanza gets explicit about the smell of America: burnt toast and repetition, mission without vision. It goes on to talk about “saving face”: looking good in front of others and following the crowd.

The song goes back to the first verse and the chorus before challenging us to ask ourselves, “What is this all about? Why are we in such a rush? The last lines challenge us to come back to beauty, come back to poetry. The poet waits with pencil in hand, waiting for the muse of his Maker to give him the words to describe beauty. It is not about facts and figures, rising before the sun, rushing to a job, or working hard. Those are part of life; but the real message of life is in the poetry. It is in the beauty.

Beauty left the room. Have we become so pragmatic, so utilitarian that beauty has left the room? Even in our churches, has beauty left the room? Beauty, poetry, and songs, have they left the room because we no longer pursue them? How do we invite this beauty back into the room?

Follow-Up to Big Smoke

The Del Barber deer story and my own Blackbird story from yesterday's post led me to think of this powerful song.

I Hung My Head
(Words and Music by Sting)
(Performed by Sting – listen here and Johnny Cash – listen here)

Early one mornin' with time to kill
I borrowed Jeb's rifle and sat on the hill
I saw a lone rider, crossin' the plain
I drew a bead on him to practice my aim
My brother's rifle went off in my hand
The shot rang out, across the land
The horse he kept runnin', the rider was dead
I hung my head, I hung my head

I set off runnin' to wake from the dream
But my brother's rifle went into the stream
I kept on runnin' into the salt lands
And that's where they found me, my head in my hands
The Sheriff he asked me, why had I run?
Then it came to me just what I had done
And all for no reason, just one piece of lead
I hung my head, I hung my head

Here in the courthouse, the whole town is there
I see the judge, high up in his chair
Explain to the courtroom, what went through your mind
And we'll ask the jury, what verdict they find
I said, "I felt the power of death over life
I orphaned his children, I widowed his wife
I beg their forgiveness, I wish I was dead"
I hung my head, I hung my head
I hung my head, I hung my head

Early one mornin' with time to kill
I see the gallows, up on the hill
And out in the distance, a trick of the brain
I see a lone rider, crossin' the plain
He come to fetch me to see what they done
And we'll ride together 'til kingdom come
I pray for God's mercy, for soon I'll be dead
I hung my head, I hung my head
I hung my head, I hung my head
I hung my head, I hung my head


Songwriter: STING; Lyrics © EMI Music Publishing

Big Smoke

Del Barber (composer and performer; album: Praireography, 2014)
(Listen while you read the lyrics) 

Blinded by the city lights
No one can see you stallin'
It's been so long since you've seen the prairie stars
You're not sure you can recall them
But there is something here for you to find
You may have found it once and lost it now 

We used to fly through the woods
On the backs of quarter horses
Pickin' dandelion bouquets for our sister and our mother
We felt like men but we were boys
Too young to know
But we were as free as fire 

And you're lost out in the Big Smoke
Lookin' for a way home
There are no straight paths
There's no easy way 

Brother do you remember
That one September morning we were shooting cans
With Dad's .22 without a worry or a warning
You pulled the trigger down and dropped that deer
And you looked at me with tears in your eyes 

And I never in a million years
Thought that you'd make that shot
And I picture you tonight, with your sights still on something so far off
Wherever you are I hope you're being careful
About the things you think you want 

And you're lost out in the Big Smoke
Without a fire of your own
There are no straight paths
There's no easy way 

(Last year, father and son produced 12,000 bushels. Under the Crow, they paid thirteen cents a bushel to ship it to Vancouver: $1560. Within four years they'll likely be paying twice as much and within a decade maybe five times as much. "If the price of grain would increase, I suppose a guy wouldn't feel it quite so badly; but on the horizon we don't see it, an increase." "Supposing they, ah, say that a few towns down the road - that grain should be here. There goes our elevator and I would think that 20% of the taxes in this town come from the elevators.) 

The sky is getting hazy
It's filling up with grain dust
And it could be in a year the bank finally gets the best of us
But our cows are fed and the bins are full
We're hoping to see you before the snow 

You're lost out in the Big Smoke
Without a fire of your own
There are no straight paths
No easy way 

Lost out in the Big Smoke
Without a fire of your own
There are no straight paths
No easy way

Wow, this song gets me; or maybe it's that I get it. Every time I listen to it, an artesian well of emotions springs forth. I grew up on the prairies with many of the same experiences depicted by Del Barber in this song. The words in brackets are words captured from a radio broadcast (used in the studio recording) about the plight of the contemporary farmer. It is all too familiar.

I remember a time when, out by myself, I stopped the truck, walked a few feet with the .22 rifle, took aim at a far away Yellow-headed Blackbird, and pulled the trigger. I never thought I'd make that shot. I cried hot tears for a bird that day; and asked for forgiveness from God for taking the life of something so beautiful that had done no wrong.

If I had a brother who moved to the city, I would be able to relate to all of this song. As it is, my heart strongly resonates with this song of city and prairie.

(A further performance can be heard here.)

To Writers and Bloggers of This World

Writers and bloggers of this world, will you hear the words of Annie Dillard? For those who have ears to hear, this is the life.

I do not so much write a book as sit up with it, as with a dying friend. During visiting hours, I enter its room with dread and sympathy for its many disorders. I hold its hand and hope it will get better. This tender relationship can change in a twinkling. If you skip a visit or two, a work in progress will turn on you.

A work in progress quickly becomes feral. It reverts to a wild state overnight. It is barely domesticated, a mustang on which you one day fastened a halter, but which now you cannot catch. It is a lion you cage in your study. As the work grows, it gets harder to control; it is a lion growing in strength. You must visit it every day and reassert your mastery over it. If you skip a day, you are, quite rightly, afraid to open the door to its room. You enter its room with bravura, holding a chair at the thing and shouting, "Simba!"

Living thus - with your lion tamer's chair, your ax, your conference table, and your clothespin - you may excite in your fellow man not curiosity but profound indifference. It is not my experience that society hates and fears the writer, or that society adulates the writer. Instead my experience is the common one, that society places the writer so far beyond the pale that society does not regard the writer at all.1

As Dante wrote and Rodin inscribed, "All hope abandon ye who enter here."

Dillard, Annie. The Writing Life. New York: Harper Perennial, 1990.

1 (Dillard 1990, 52, 53)

Cape Breton Island

My wife and I just returned from a week of vacation in Nova Scotia. We particularly enjoyed our time on Cape Breton Island traversing the Ceilidh trail and Cabot Trail. Nova Scotia is a proud land with a noble history. Scottish Highlanders, with their distinctive Scottish Gaelic language, were cleared out of the Highlands of Scotland by English landowners in the 18th and 19th centuries. Pictou, Nova Scotia received the first wave of immigrants from Scotland on September 15, 1773. About 200 people arrived on a small sailing ship called the Hector. It's full size replica still sits in Pictou Harbour.

The Highlanders who landed in Nova Scotia (New Scotland) had to work hard to overcome the hardships of the land. They fished and farmed; grew flax to make linen cloth; raised sheep; built homes and tamed the land. They developed their own traditions, maintained the Gaelic language, and sang and played music everywhere they lived. They had songs that were sung while they milled cloth (milling frolic music), they sang while they milked cows, planted crops, and any other work they might have done. They brought with them the bag-pipe but adapted many bag-pipe reels, jigs, and strathspeys for the fiddle. The bag-pipe influence is still evident in the music of Cape Breton Island. Families passed down the knowledge of the family tunes and fathers taught their children to play the fiddle the way their father had taught them. To this day, you can tell what family or locality the player is from by the style of the fiddler and the way he taps his foot. Kitchen parties, or Ceilidhs (pronounced Cay-lee) held in the evenings were important ways that knowledge was passed from one generation to the next. Stories were told, good hearted arguments about the right way to play a tune or a note occurred, and the social fabric of the society was maintained.

Life was hard for these early settlers but hard work saw them through. In contemporary times, Nova Scotia has suffered more hardship. Unregulated fishing of cod and haddock allowed unsustainable numbers of fish to be taken out of the Atlantic resulting in the collapse of the cod and haddock industry. Government shut down all cod fishing to allow the numbers to return but twenty years later there are still few cod and haddock in the Scotian Shelf. Scientists believe that the ecosystem has been permanently changed by the overfishing. Today, a lobster season and a crab fishing season are the only fishing available to those who used to fish the mighty Atlantic sea. Much of the area relies upon tourism from May through early September and jobs are hard to find. Some bed and breakfast businesses and restaurant owners spoke of how many young people have become dependent on employment insurance cheques.

Nova Scotia exports most of its East Coast musicians, adding to the economic problems of the region. Many bands and artists write songs and adapt them for commercial markets but eventually make their way to the larger centres like Toronto or Nashville. Our travels through the Ceilidh trail were rich with music. Many restaurants and pubs featured live music by local artists. Some was traditional and some was contemporary folk music.

Jimmy Rankin from Mabou, Nova Scotia on Cape Breton Island (part of the Ceilidh Trail) writes of the sadness and loss of his home. His song called "Running Home" has references to his longing for home and how he must travel but he will always be "chasing home." The final three stanzas have a different style and tune and speak of the former glory of his home and how they have lost much: "Northern winds got the best of us; sure made a mess of us; hope they're not the death of us."

Running Home (Lyrics and music by Jimmy Rankin)

Say goodbye to the city nights
Now I need the northern lights and the changes
Gotta trade the bars for stars
Haven't seen your face in while must be ages

I'm always gonna be chasing highways
I'm always gonna be chasing highways
Home
Running home
Home
But I'm running home

This place is full of memories
Some of them of my younger days running carefree
I'm far away from the scene back there
Far away from the space I care deep inside me

I'm always gonna be chasing highways
I'm always gonna be chasing highways
Home
Running home
Home
But I'm running home

Trading tunes until daylight
Many times I burned up the night getting crazy
Tired of the scene back there
Back again to a space I care all around me

Home
Running home

(silence)

This ain't much, just a little note to you
I miss your touch and everything you used to do
You're miles away from where you used to be
Northern winds got the best of you
Sure made a mess of you

Can't go back to the place that was before
The past is past and no one lives there anymore
There're miles away from where it used to be
Northern winds got the best of them
Sure made a mess of them

This ain't much but I had to make it clear
I'll spread my wings and I'll disappear
To miles away from where I used to be
Northern winds got the best of us
Sure made a mess of us
Northern winds got the best of us
Sure made a mess of us
Hope they're not the death of us.

I too desire to see this proud land "Rise Again." May we live to see the rise of proud Cape Bretoners once again.

Learning From Artists

My friend, Andrew, is blogging once again and invited some interaction with his thoughts about Christian music. You can find his thought-provoking, original, blog here.

His blog got me thinking about some of my opinions about what gets labeled “Christian” music. There is plenty of good worship music out there that can be used to praise God in a corporate setting. We could talk about that another time. But then there is all of that stuff that gets the moniker, Christian, or Spiritual, or Inspirational, or Gospel. We often get into trouble when we seek to put labels on who is “inside” and who is “outside” of the camp. We say this artist speaks from the perspective of “us” while this artist does not. I learn much from artists with whom I disagree. Their art is likely pointing to something I need to hear.

I remember listening to U2 in the early 80s when the only place you could buy the “Boy” album was in small Christian record stores. They had been given the label of alternative Christian music. Fortunately they spoke to a broader audience than that. Their music was prophetic and was not “safe.” Would they be viewed as a Christian band today?

Steve Taylor has a reputation as a satirical/sarcastic song writer but many of his songs are prophetic. I have written here about his song, “I Manipulate.” You could listen to songs like “We Don’t Need No Color Code,” “Baby Doe,” “Drive,” or “Meltdown at Madame Tussauds.” Most of these songs obscure the lines between “Christian” and “Secular.” Andrew pointed out to me that Derek Webb has said that “the word ‘christian,’ when applied to anything other than a human being is just a marketing term.” Both Andrew and I would agree with this. Derek Webb is another artist whose music is too prophetic for “Christian” radio and too "Christian" for mainstream radio.

Bob Dylan at one time made a profession of Christian faith. Evangelical Christians heard this and the headlines which proclaimed his newfound faith nearly ruined his career and livelihood. Other Christians pointed out flaws in his theology and his lifestyle expecting him to graduate to maturity instantly.

The fact is we can learn much from artists who do not follow Christ. Don Henley’s “Frail Grasp On The Big Picture” is a prophetic voice to North American culture. Listening to Dallas Green (City and Color), I am awestruck by his spiritual themes. I have no misconception that the man is a Christian but I certainly learn from this artist. I will seek to humbly learn from Christian and non-Christian artists. We must take “every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5) even if that thought arises from within the camp.

Grand Optimist

Okay, I will confess, I am obsessed with a song. I have listened to it dozens of times in the last few days. Ever since I saw it performed on the Juno Awards I have been obsessed with Dallas Green's song, "The Grand Optimist." Dallas Green who performs as "City and Colour" won the songwriter of the year award for work on the "Little Hell" recording. Here are the lyrics to "The Grand Optimist." Listen to it here.

I fear I'm dying from complications
Complications due to things that I've left undone
That all my debts will be left unpaid
Feel like a cripple without a cane
I'm like a jack of all trades
Who's a master of none

Then there's my father
He's always looking on the bright side
Saying things like "Son, life just ain't that hard."
He is the grand optimist
I am the world's poor pessimist
You give him burdensome times
And he will escape unscarred

I guess I take after my mother
I guess I take after my mother

I used to be quite resilient
Gain no strength from counting the beads on a rosary
Now the wound has begun to turn
Another lesson that has gone unlearned
But this is not a cry for pity or for sympathy

I guess I take after my mother
I guess I take after my mother
(2011, City and Colour Inc. Under Exclusive License to Dine Alone Music - CA) 

As I read the words of this song my heart immediately began to make some interpretations. My mind sees allusions and references to generations and societal influences and begins to paint a picture of what the artist is saying. We must interpret a song carefully, but at the end of the day the song speaks to us with the images it conjures in our minds. Brian Walsh, who wrote an entire book in which he interprets the songs of Bruce Cockburn, has this to say about interpreting songs:

Let me put it this way: while I wouldn't give the artist the final word on any matter of interpretation of his own work, I am interested in knowing what I can about what the artist might think about a piece of his own work. So yes, the artist has some interpretive authority over his work. But not final or exhaustive authority. Artists can say more than they mean. They can make allusions without intending to do so. But the allusions are "really there!" Or at least they are there if you have eyes to see.
Let me be clear that I am not saying that "anything goes" when it comes to my interpretations of Bruce Cockburn's songs. Any interpretation needs to have merit in relation to the work being interpreted. Interpretation needs to be faithful to the art under discussion. We could say that interpretation itself is an act of performance.*

The images conjured in my mind as I listen to "The Grand Optimist" are those of generational differences. I think of the differences between my father and myself. I think of the differences between my children and myself. I think of more general societal differences between the modernist generations and the post-modernist generations. I think of gender differences.

The father and son are quite different. The son is full of fear and worry. He worries about things that may never happen and, at one level, may not matter. The father is stoic and remains unbothered by difficult times. The singer speaks of how his father is an optimist and that if "you  give him burdensome times" "he will escape unscarred." But not so the singer. One senses that, for good or ill, he is scarred by burdensome times. In this regard, he does not take after his father; he takes after his mother. He and his mother are both scarred. Should one be scarred by "burdensome times?" We are left with that question. Perhaps every generation takes after their mother rather than their father.

The artist recognizes a change in himself. He "used to be quite resilient." He did not need rosary beads to gain strength. But now, his wound, that will eventually scar, "has begun to turn;" perhaps fester; perhaps hurt; and so the lessons go unlearned. Yet, there is a hardness in him, for he will not cry out "for pity or for sympathy." He sees his wounds and his scars; he sees the difficult times; but he internalizes the pain and will not let others see this pain. And so, with or without a rosary, he will cry out to no one. He has learned how to hold things in and bear up under such conditions; he takes after his mother.

*Walsh, Brian J. Kicking at the Darkness: Bruce Cockburn and the Christian Imagination. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2011, p. 32.