It occurred to me today that we don’t hold popular music up to the same expectations of authenticity that we do for memoirs (like James Frey’s Million Little Pieces) or a similar works of non-fiction. And thinking about it, this strikes me as odd. For myself, and I’m sure the same is true for many others, music strikes me in an intimate, personal way that the best books, movies, or works of art can never quite replicate. Yet I don’t expect the music I listen to to be “truthful.” For me, songs exist in their own self-contained universe, and it doesn’t matter to me whether Paul Simon ever hung out with Julio down by the schoolyard or not - the relationship between the lyrics and the life of the singer/songwriter has very little impact upon my listening experience.
But have there ever been incidents where a popular (or not so popular) singer was held up to public scorn and disdain when events in his or her songs were found out to be untrue? I could imagine that fans of, say, Tori Amos might feel personally deceived if she were to reveal that she’d never been sexually assaulted. But has this ever happened before, on any scale?
Thanks, minty green, but Milli Vanilli’s situation isn’t quite what I’m going for - they were called on their lip-synching, not on the truthfulness of their lyrics. If it had been discovered that James Frey didn’t actually write Million Little Pieces, then I could see a parallel between the two, but that’s not what happened.
SmackFu, was there ever an uproar over Vanilla Ice’s deception? All I have are hazy memories of a “Behind thThe Music” episode.
Yes, but isn’t there always an implicit assertion that the artist whose name is on the CD cover actually sang the songs? Frey presented himself as a wildman ex-junkie, while Milli Vanilli presented themselves as legitimate singers. I’d say the comparison is extremely close, especially because the book in question purported to be an autobiography; i.e., it was supposed to tell us something truthful about the artist himself.
Moreover, Milli Vanilli actually won a Grammy for Best New Artist in 1990. I’d put it in the same category as Frey.
I remember hearing that there was some criticism of Alanis Morrisette for writing harder-edged lyrics than her “You Can’t Do That On Television”-child star past would seem to support. But I just heard that somewhere – no idea on how justified the criticism was 'cause I don’t usually follow that kind of thing.
I think there are very few types of songs that anyone expects to be literally truthful. Maye if Schoolhouse Rock had been found to be lying to us all these years about how a bill gets passed – that might be something.
A lot of songs aren’t that straightforward though - most don’t say “I was in jail for killing someone it sucked I beat everyone up there my wife left me and got with a woman” etc. It’s more feelings and metaphors left open to interpretation. So who’s to say what happened and didn’t happen unless it is EXPLICITY stated in the song?
I don’t think you can make any type of apt analogy to the Frey situation, as we as listeners go in pretty much fully aware that 99.99999% of songs are works of fiction. For the comparison to exist, the singer would have to go on Oprah, sing his song and then declare that every word was the gospel truth and actually happened exactly as he sang it.
The only thing that sprung to mind when I read your OP was the ludicrous thought of a million record buyers returning their copies of Gordon Lightfoot’s “Wreck of The Edmund Fitzgerald,” because (iirc) at 7 p. m., the “old cook” did not come on deck and say “Fellows, it’s been good to know ya,” because he was out sick and missed that voyage and a replacement cook went in his place. And since no one survived the voyage anyway, how would Lightfoot know what time he came on deck, and what he said? That damn Canuck liar!!!
No, but some people did have the impression that Johnny Cash had done time in prison because of songs like “Folsom Prison Blues.” That’s not a claim that Cash ever actually made but it’s vaguely on point regarding the OP’s question.
There was sort of the reverse of this sort of controversy in 1992 over Ice-T’s song “Cop Killer”
wanna bust some shots off
wanna dust some cops off
and policemen’s organizations were in an uproar nationally. Ice-T argued in his own defense that he wasn’t personally advocating killing cops; he was just acting out the “persona” of a cop killer for dramatic effect.
It was like in The Piano where the Maori, seeing a play for the first time, took it seriously and went on stage and started beating up the actor who played the villain.
Maybe these controversies need a dose of postmodernist deconstruction, stop thinking you have to connect the artist with the art.
This goes back to the Ion of Plato, which said that the artist doesn’t even know what he’s doing when he gets spontaneous inspiration (from the Muses). He just produces art without knowing what it means. The postmodernist development of this position says that the personal life of the artist is of no significance to understanding the text.
Not that this incited any controversy, but I remember the first time I heard Charlie Daniels sing “Still In Saigon” I said to myself - I bet that guy never served. Well, that was back in my pre-Internet days but since then, I have learned I was right.
Mr Daniels likes to present himself as 150% American and I’m sure it didn’t strain any of his fans to imagine the song must have been a dead-on first person account of all the horrors he had to endure.
Maybe, I’m putting way too much emphasis on what many would consider a small matter. However, if the subject matter of a song does not necessarily relate to the singer, then I’m sure Charlie wouldn’t mind singing “I Enjoy Being A Girl”.
(I am aware that Charlie did not write “Still In Saigon” but I’m sure it took zero amount of arm twisting to get him to sing it).
You see, you need to be familiar with a concept knowns as “fiction.”
If Charlie Daniels is singing a song, he is taking on the persona indicated in the song. He is identifying with the feelings in the song and trying to portray those feelings as honesty as possible (in other areas, this is known as “acting”; in songs, it’s known as “interpretation.”)
Thinking a singer singing a song is telling a story of his life is akin to thinking Arnold Schwarzneggar is a cyborg, or Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal are gay lovers. The best you can say of anyone who thinks that is that they’re clueless.
A lot of from-the-hood music had been back-criticized when it turned out the musician was from a middle class family. “Jenny from the Black,” yo.
But I think there’s an assumption that music lyrics will frequently be bullshit even when they’re written in the first person, because music lyrics are, after all, poetry, and so it’s not a big deal if they take poetic license, and truth and lies will intertwine so take it all with a grain of salt. A book that is marketed as being autobiographical is something else entirely.
People still get confused about music, though. I understand Gord Downie still has people coming up to him saying they’re really sorry about his brother being in prison, upon which he always patiently explains that he doesn’t have a brother and “38 Years Old” is pure fiction.
