If you believe the dudes from Los Lobos, that’s not the only thing Paul Simon made up about Graceland.
As for mistaking fiction for (auto)biography, I’m having trouble coming up with an example of where I’ve done that…though I guess I thought JD Salinger probably did go to a prep school full of phonies.
That’s for sure—All these years later that story still gets brought up from time to time.
I have heard both sides to the story, and I don’t know what really happened, but apparently Paul Simon has failed to credit other musicians (not just Los Lobos) that he has “collaborated” on songs with, so there may be some truth to Los Lobos’ claims…
I still love Paul Simon’s music, though.
ETA—I am also a HUGE fan of Los Lobos, and a couple of years back I spent a small fortune following them around when the played a tour of Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands.—Money well spent by the way!!!
Here’s an example that I think fits what the OP is looking for.
Recently I was thinking about early Pearl Jam break-up ballad “Black” (link goes to live performance on MTV Unplugged), which I’d always assumed was at least semi-autobiographical. Many of the other songs on Ten are known to be based on either events in Eddie Vedder’s life or things that happened to other people he knew or had heard about (“Jeremy” was inspired by a news story), and I figured “Black” was probably based on some bad break-up in Vedder’s past.
But as rock stars go, Vedder has actually had a fairly uncomplicated love life. He started dating the woman who would become his first wife (they divorced in 2000, I think he has since remarried) when he was only 19, several years before he wrote “Black”. So the break-up songs on Ten (there’s also “Porch”) either aren’t about his own experiences at all, or they were inspired by some girl who broke his heart in high school.
Either way, I have to admit I’m a little disappointed. Not much, but I always thought of “Black” as being a more-or-less “true” song about the aftermath of a serious relationship, not a work of fiction and certainly not a tale of a teenage romance gone wrong.* I don’t believe Vedder has ever revealed the inspiration for “Black” in an interview, but I’m guessing that while he may have drawn on the memory of a youthful break-up it is mostly either fictional or was inspired by someone else’s life. This hasn’t ruined the song for me though – it may even make more sense that way. The lyrics seem to suggest that the romance was a May/December thing, and some people have interpreted the references to canvas, clay, and pictures in the song as meaning it’s more specifically about an art professor who had an ill-fated affair with a younger student or model.
*Not that such tales are necessarily bad. Better writers than Vedder have certainly drawn from that well; I mean, Romeo and Juliet is a teenage romance gone wrong.
I don’t believe that’s entirely true. The doctor was fictional, but he was based on an actual British advisor Idi Amin had who was very intimately connected with Amin and his administration. I think the local Ugandans referred to him as “the white rat.”
Not generally. A lot of Sonia’s (of Disappear Fear) songs both sound autobiographical, and may include some things that I know to be autobiographical, so occasionally she’ll sing about something and I’ll be wondering whether it’s really about her or not (getting a law degree, having a Dad who’s a Vietnam Vet, getting raped in High School, having a friend killed in a botched robbery attempt).
Usually it’s the opposite, I assume everything is fictional, and I’m pleasantly surprised, or entertained, or disturbed upon finding any real life basis for things (Freshman, When Sal’s Burned Down).
In terms of books, there was some kind of book I bought once in a thrift store that wall all about how dragons really exist. The evidence of course was as spotty as UFO books - blurry photos and diagrams from witness testimony. I assumed it was some kind of parody, but the spine said “non fiction”. To this day I wonder whether it was some kind of clever spoof, or if the author really was some kind of crackpot who believed in dragons…
My dad told me the story about King Christiaan of Denmark pinning on a yellow star the day after the Germans ordered the Danish Jews to wear yellow stars. I was absolutely crushed to find out from Snopes that it probably never happened.
Actually there is one. Go Ask Alice. As a teen in middle school, I was encouraged to read this one. Well, we all were. When I started reading snopes, around 13 or 14, I found out it was phony, and I haven’t trusted anyone over thirty since.
No, but seriously, it does chap my hide that we would be given this to read. Even if it was real, it’s crap.
Before I was fully aware of who the Cohen brothers are, I watched Fargo, and right in the opening scenes it says it is a true story.
Now, I find the movie enjoyable regardless, but Mrs. Raza is a bigger fan of “based on a true story” than I, so the revelation that it is fiction would bother her a lot more. Maybe not in the case of a multi-murder crime spree, though.
After I first saw the film “Picnic at Hanging Rock,” which is presented as being based on a true story about 3 schoolgirls and a teacher who mysteriously disappeared in 1900, I went online to find out what really happened, if any trace of them was ever found, etc–and found out that nothing like it ever happened at Hanging Rock.
Still a wonderful movie, though.
Nope, doesn’t bother me. I knew some songwriters in my youth & saw how the process works. As for books, I assume that anything shelved in the Fiction Section is fiction. (A youthful encounter with the works of George Adamski made me wary of non-fiction, too.)
Last year, Steve Earle gave an in-store performance at Houston’s Cactus records. He mostly did songs from Townes–that won a Grammy the other night. The album is mostly songs by Townes van Zandt, who taught Earle a lot about writing. (And taught a generation of songwriters lifestyle lessons that weren’t as valuable.) He also sang his own Fort Worth Blues, that ends like this:
Then he said he’d used a bit of artistic license; he’s always had a fine time in Paris.
Well, the movie is fiction. And the “based on a true story” notice at the beginning is also fiction. It’s kind of meta. Like, why would you think a notice saying “this is true” should be true?
Because lots of fictional movies are based on or inspired by true events?
It’s also a Coen Brothers movie. The jokers who claimed O Brother Where Art Thou was based on Homer’s Odyssey. Yes, there were similarities. But anyone watching the movie instead of reading the book would get into a bunch of trouble in class…
There are more people here than I would have expected who don’t understand what “based on” means. It doesn’t mean that they used the source material as a shooting script.
I remember being absolutely crushed as a child to learn that Jane Pitman was a fictional character. I mean, the book and movie were called The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pitman, so how could she not have been real? Shouldn’t only real people be able to write autobiographies?
I soon learned to check for words like ‘fiction’ and ‘novel.’
I think this is exactly right. Even if the specific details did not happen to him, it is a little odd to think they aren’t “true” in the sense that they were based on at least some life experience. Especially in a the case of Paul Simon, who rings especially authentic, IMHO.
How dare you? Have you MET the Space Brothers?!?
Anyway, I was kinda disappointed just a couple of years ago when I found out that the Sawney Beane clan of Scottish inbred cannibal killers was totally made up.
Over a decade ago, when various Satanic ritual abuse books were being debunked, a friend at church expressed her disappointment at one such debunking- I replied “Oh, so you’d RATHER there be a vast Satanic network of ritual child abusers?”
Well, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of his stories were exaggerated or made up out of whole cloth. But I feel kind of invested in his family stories, specifically. The Slate article doesn’t talk about them particularly.
Yesterday evening I was thinking about Memoirs of a Geisha and if maybe I was a bit harsh in this thread yesterday. I worked in a bookstore for about a year and a half in 2000-2001 and I regularly shelved that book in the fiction section. So my POV was rather biased. Sorry, y’all.
It was a real eye-opening moment when I realized that all “based on a true story” movies are fictional. Yeah, a fictional movie “based on truth,” but still fictional.
I’m no more bothered by it than by knowning that Gene Roddenberry has never been to space.