"The writer who refuses to explore the darker regions of the heart will never be able to write convincingly about the wonder, the magic and the joy of love for just as goodness cannot be trusted unless it has breathed the same air as evil - the enduring metaphor of Christ crucified between two criminals comes to mind here - so within the fabric of the love song, within its melody, its lyric, one must sense an acknowledgement of its capacity for suffering"
Eloquent as always, but I don't know if I agree entirely with him. In a way, I'm torn - I don't agree that a piece of art needs to have a tinge of darkness to be resonant or convincing, yet at the same time, a prolonged absense would be harmful. If I were to listen to hours on end of songs excitedly proclaiming the power of love, I'd probably get a little sick after a while, and reach out for Murder Ballads! Of course, if I listened for hours on end to some of the more depressing music out there, I'd probably reach for some sunny-pop to help me snap out of a potential depression. I guess what I'm saying is that both ways are valid, and further that having a sample of both is not necessarily the best way to go. Really, is there anything wrong with a ditty like "Ram On", sitting at an inoffensive two minutes?
Yes, it's definitely possible to come up with some expression of love while embracing the darkness, so as to speak; the programme features a clip of "Where The Wild Roses Grow", a chilling, eerie song that is in some perverted sense a love song ("As I kissed her goodbye, I said, 'All beauty must die'"). Yet I disagree that shutting one's eyes to the gloom leads to an unconvincing piece of art. In some sense, art is a distillation of ideas, and if something chooses to focus on one side, so be it. To me, "Love Minus Zero" is as beautiful a love song as anything else in this world; the fact that Dylan doesn't choose to express the pain he endured on the way is of little consequence to me.
One of the statements Cave makes is particularly interesting. Cave is certainly a good, maybe even great lyricist (I reserve such high praise only because I'm not as familiar with his work as I should be). He's known to have a great interest in literature and painting, so it begs the question: why does he pursue rock music, which, as he says, is often regarded as the lowest form of art? His answer may surprise some. He states that music is the most mysterious art form, something I think we can all agree on that to some extent. But he further says that rock music in particular is the only art form he knows that can stir up specific emotions, such as rage. He says he could never feel angry or violent after reading a book or watching a painting, but he can when listening to something. As I think about this, I find myself agreeing with him; listening to Cave's own "Tupelo", and the Doors' "When The Music's Over" say, just wants me to scream out loud. Not with rage or anger, mind you, but there is a certain euphoria that the music is able to kindle which I don't think any other form has managed to do for me. The Birthday Party's "Junkyard" brings up a very different emotion - pure fear, really. Hearing Cave scream is just spooky at the start, but by the end I get truly creeped out. Of course, this isn't to say that there aren't things that other forms can make one feel which music can't; harking back to my previous post, I doubt all the songs in the world could impart the same feeling as reading Narziss And Goldmund late at night, or for that matter seeing some of the photos from the trip I took recently. This is all perhaps something of a moot point, but I've often wondered what someone obviously so richly connected to the more traditionally focussed streams of art thinks of the form he's currently pursuing. It turns out he wouldn't have it any other way!
Early in the programme, there is some talk about Cave's motivation to write. Speaking of the tragedy of the early death of his father, and the resulting emptiness it created, he says:
"The way I learned to fill this hole, this void, was to write. My father taught me this as if to prepare me for his own passing. To write allowed me direct access to my imagination, to inspiration and ultimately to God. I found through the use of language, that I wrote god into existence. Language became the blanket that I threw over the invisible man, that gave him shape and form"
How beautifully put! It vaguely echoes the sentiment I reserved when I was writing on a regular basis. As he says much later on in the segment, "The word is immortal". You know, when I started listening to the programme, my intent at the time was to write. However, I was at a loss for inspiration, or any idea to base my writing upon. Some thirty minutes later, listening to some of the words pierce through and get to the crux of things, hearing tales of Cave's father reading Shakespeare to him, I've found my inspiration - strangely enough, not only to write, but to read as well.
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