# Things artist say about their work you don't believe **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 23, 2011, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-artist-say-about-their-work-you-dont-believe/582848 "2011-05-23T02:33:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2011, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-artist-say-about-their-work-you-dont-believe/582848/21 "2011-05-23T17:40:02Z")
> [@installLSC](#): > > I was listening to Jethro Tull’s “Thick As A Brick” album today and was reminded that frontman and lyricist Ian Anderson has long denied that it’s a concept album. What’s a “concept album”, and why would that be required for his song to be as described? > [@Two\_Many\_Cats](#): > > Douglas Adams claimed that it was a story that really happened to him. > > Actually, the story is an urban legend descended from the similar story of the jogger’s stolen wallet. > > I had respect for Douglas Adams before I heard about him claiming that. It is possible, and even mildly plausible, and an incident like this did happen to Douglas Adams. It’s not a particularly strange tale, and it is entirely conceivable you can see someone with something you just had in your possession and think they got it from you. Hell, I’ve had situations like that occur. For it to be a package of cookies and he ate some thinking the other person was the rude one, well, plausible. > [@Chronos](#): > > Me, I’m going to nominate Heinlein’s _Starship Troopers_. Heinlein claimed in letters written years later that the military was not the only path to citizenship in the book; that any sort of civic service (delivering mail, say) would also qualify. But that’s flatly contradicted by the book: If you couldn’t cut it in the infantry, then there was nothing left but testing experimental spacesuits on Titan, or other creative ways of committing suicide. Seconded. He wouldn’t even count some of the activities performed for the military - positions like clerical jobs weren’t held by soldiers, but by civilian auxiliaries. Those jobs didn’t count for citizenship. It was clearly more than _service_ that was required, it was _service that put your life at risk for the greater good_. Postman just doesn’t fit that description. ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2011, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-artist-say-about-their-work-you-dont-believe/582848/22 "2011-05-23T17:59:15Z")
The Vapors _insist_ that _Turning Japanese_ is not about masturbation. Riiigggghhhht. Similarly, The Violent Femmes _insist_ that _Blister in the Sun_ is not about masturbation. Riigggghhhht. At least Cindi Lauper admist freely that _She Bop_ is, actually, for realz, about masturbation. And then there’s Dizzy Gillespie’s claim that “I believe be-bop will help bring about world peace.” OK Dizzy, thanks for that. Dizzy’s been dead for almost 20 years, and world peace still hasn’t happened yet, but I’m sure that _someday_ the sound of someone torturing a saxophone will actually get people to stop going to war. ---
**Author:** ![LateComer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b5ac83/32.png) [@LateComer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LateComer)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2011, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-artist-say-about-their-work-you-dont-believe/582848/23 "2011-05-23T19:35:53Z")
> [@installLSC](#): > > I was listening to Jethro Tull’s “Thick As A Brick” album today and was reminded that frontman and lyricist Ian Anderson has long denied that it’s a concept album. The odd thing is that when I read [the lyrics](http://remus.rutgers.edu/JethroTull/Albums/ThickAsABrick-lyrics.html) I swear it’s a relatively straightforward song about how society and its wars harms a sensitive man, much in the vein of Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”. What things has an artist said about one of their works that make you say “I don’t believe that for a second”? I think you’re mixing up 2 albums: Thick as a Brick was concieved as a send up of a progrock concept album in response to critics calling Aqualung a “concept” album. [Relevent quote](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thick_as_a_Brick): > [@](#): > > Band leader Ian Anderson was surprised by the critical reaction to Aqualung as a “concept album”, a label he’s firmly rejected to this day. In an interview on In the Studio with Redbeard (which spotlighted Thick as a Brick), Ian Anderson’s response to the critics was: “If the critics want a concept album we’ll give the mother of all concept albums and we’ll make it so bombastic and so over the top.” Also, I don’t believe that Richard Thompson’s [Here Comes Geordie](http://www.richardthompson-music.com/song_o_matic.asp?id=622) is not about Sting despite the denials. ---
**Author:** ![MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MPB_in_Salt_Lake)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2011, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-artist-say-about-their-work-you-dont-believe/582848/24 "2011-05-23T19:46:36Z")
> [@LateComer](#): > > Also, I don’t believe that Richard Thompson’s [Here Comes Geordie](http://www.richardthompson-music.com/song_o_matic.asp?id=622) is not about Sting despite the denials. Though I am not much of a fan of Richard Thompson’s music, and while I am a huge fan of the Police’s stuff (I am lukewarm on most of Sting’s solo efforts, some is quite good, some is dreadful) I think that these lyrics characterize Sting and his oversize ego to a T. It is clearly, obviously, unmistakably about Sting. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2011, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-artist-say-about-their-work-you-dont-believe/582848/25 "2011-05-23T20:49:01Z")
Speaking of LSD, Tina Turner claims she had no idea what “acid” was when she sang _Acid Queen_ in the movie version of The Who’s _Tommy_. I find this hard to believe as she’s not a stupid woman, she had been in the rock scene for well over a decade, and she’d even opened and toured with The Rolling Stones. She may never have taken acid but no possible way she didn’t know what it was. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2011, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-artist-say-about-their-work-you-dont-believe/582848/26 "2011-05-23T21:52:27Z")
> [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](#): > > It is clearly, obviously, unmistakably about Sting. [You Know, I Used To Be Kind Of Cool Once](http://www.theonion.com/articles/you-know-i-used-to-be-kind-of-cool-once,10932/) ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2011, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-artist-say-about-their-work-you-dont-believe/582848/27 "2011-05-23T22:47:46Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > What’s a “concept album”, and why would that be required for his song to be as described? [Concept album](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concept_album). Famous examples include Queensryche’s _Operation:Mindcrime_ (parts 1 and 2), and Styx’s _Kilroy Was Here_ and _Paradise Theater_. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2011, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-artist-say-about-their-work-you-dont-believe/582848/28 "2011-05-23T23:01:23Z")
_Fahrenheit 451_ damned well _ought_ to be about censorship, regardless of what Bradbury says. It’s interesting and relevant when it’s about the cultural self-censorship that comes of not being willing to offend anyone in the pursuit of artistic value. It _makes sense_ when it’s interpreted that way. But Bradbury says it’s about the evils of technology. It’s a damned Luddite polemic and, even though it still makes sense in that light, it shouldn’t be viewed like that. That interpretation guts the story and leaves it as pointless as any other idiot maundering about how things were better in some fictional Arcadia that can only just barely exist when an intelligent person is no older than twelve. [All authors are dead.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_the_Author) Bradbury had the damnfool notion to commit suicide. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2011, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-artist-say-about-their-work-you-dont-believe/582848/29 "2011-05-23T23:09:41Z")
That’s funny, **Derleth** , the copy of the book I read had a preface by Bradbury saying the same thing: That there was nothing inherent about the medium of TV that prevented it from having works as artistically great as those of literature, and that the problem was the fear of giving offense and blandifying everything as a result. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Peyote\_Coyote](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f8ce5/32.png) [@The\_Peyote\_Coyote](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Peyote_Coyote)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2011, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-artist-say-about-their-work-you-dont-believe/582848/30 "2011-05-23T23:16:24Z")
HeyHomie: Diz played the trumpet, not the saxaphone. ---
**Author:** ![Anamorphic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/anamorphic/32/3057_2.png) [@Anamorphic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anamorphic)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2011, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-artist-say-about-their-work-you-dont-believe/582848/31 "2011-05-23T23:26:46Z")
> [@HeyHomie](#): > > Similarly, The Violent Femmes _insist_ that _Blister in the Sun_ is not about masturbation. Riigggghhhht. What do they claim it’s about? I admit I’ve never really studied the lyrics closely, but I’ve always kind of assumed it was about heroin. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2011, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-artist-say-about-their-work-you-dont-believe/582848/32 "2011-05-23T23:39:58Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Me, I’m going to nominate Heinlein’s _Starship Troopers_. Heinlein claimed in letters written years later that the military was not the only path to citizenship in the book; that any sort of civic service (delivering mail, say) would also qualify. But that’s flatly contradicted by the book: If you couldn’t cut it in the infantry, then there was nothing left but testing experimental spacesuits on Titan, or other creative ways of committing suicide. Sure, but the book itself contradicts that interpretation. Johnny’s friend Carl was doing some kind of electronics research on Pluto when the Bugs hit it. Nowhere in there was there any indication that Carl’s research was inherently dangerous. Also, the bit about counting the caterpillar fuzz if you’re blind and deaf doesn’t imply risk, just the willingness to serve. I got the exact opposite impression from you guys; I had the impression that the MI was a VERY small part of the Federal service hierarchy, but the most classically military of them all. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-artist-say-about-their-work-you-dont-believe/582848/33 "2011-05-24T00:00:03Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > That’s funny, **Derleth** , the copy of the book I read had a preface by Bradbury saying the same thing: That there was nothing inherent about the medium of TV that prevented it from having works as artistically great as those of literature, and that the problem was the fear of giving offense and blandifying everything as a result. [This is what he said in 2007, anyway](http://www.laweekly.com/2007-05-31/news/ray-bradbury-fahrenheit-451-misinterpreted/): > [@](#): > > _Fahrenheit 451_ is not, he says firmly, a story about government censorship. Nor was it a response to Senator Joseph McCarthy, whose investigations had already instilled fear and stifled the creativity of thousands. > > [snip] > > Bradbury, a man living in the creative and industrial center of reality TV and one-hour dramas, says it is, in fact, a story about how television destroys interest in reading literature. > > “Television gives you the dates of Napoleon, but not who he was,” Bradbury says, summarizing TV’s content with a single word that he spits out as an epithet: “factoids.” He says this while sitting in a room dominated by a gigantic flat-panel television broadcasting the Fox News Channel, muted, factoids crawling across the bottom of the screen. (I state without further commentary that TVs can receive channels other than Fox News.) **HeyHomie** : Please state why you think _Blister in the Sun_ is about masturbation. Personally, after listening to the song and reading the lyrics, I agree with **Anamorphic** that it’s a drug song. ---
**Author:** ![BrotherCadfael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@BrotherCadfael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrotherCadfael)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-artist-say-about-their-work-you-dont-believe/582848/34 "2011-05-24T00:37:45Z")
> [@Reno\_Nevada](#): > > I By saying that \*Lord of the Rings \*“is not an allegory”, Tolkien meant that Frodo did not represent Perseverance, Merry did not represent Adolescence, and Saruman did not represent Fear of Cheese–they were characters reacting to events in a reasonably realistic fashion. Sarumen represented Fear of Cutting the Cheese… ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-artist-say-about-their-work-you-dont-believe/582848/35 "2011-05-24T01:18:35Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > _Fahrenheit 451_ damned well _ought_ to be about censorship, regardless of what Bradbury says. It’s interesting and relevant when it’s about the cultural self-censorship that comes of not being willing to offend anyone in the pursuit of artistic value. It _makes sense_ when it’s interpreted that way. > > But Bradbury says it’s about the evils of technology. It’s a damned Luddite polemic and, even though it still makes sense in that light, it shouldn’t be viewed like that. That interpretation guts the story and leaves it as pointless as any other idiot maundering about how things were better in some fictional Arcadia that can only just barely exist when an intelligent person is no older than twelve. > > [All authors are dead.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_the_Author) Bradbury had the damnfool notion to commit suicide. This is what I came in to say. Clearly, he has no idea what his book was about anymore. Young Bradbury would have mocked this interpretation. ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-artist-say-about-their-work-you-dont-believe/582848/36 "2011-05-24T01:32:56Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Speaking of LSD, Tina Turner claims she had no idea what “acid” was when she sang _Acid Queen_ in the movie version of The Who’s _Tommy_. I find this hard to believe as she’s not a stupid woman, she had been in the rock scene for well over a decade, and she’d even opened and toured with The Rolling Stones. She may never have taken acid but no possible way she didn’t know what it was. Similarly, Ted Nugent swears up and down that he didn’t know the Amboy Dukes’ “Journey to the Center of the Mind” was about psychedelic drugs. Despite Nugent’s famous teetotaler reputation, I still find this difficult to believe. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-artist-say-about-their-work-you-dont-believe/582848/37 "2011-05-24T01:33:51Z")
I agree with you guys on the Bradbury issue, but I wonder if the “problem” is that Fahrenheit 541 is a “classic” in the very real sense that it’s very best theme changes to suit the message of the culture who reads it. That, like the best of Shakespeare, it’s so great that it will always have an important and profound theme for the reader, though that theme may change as the reader’s needs change. That kinda makes me want to read it again, although I didn’t like it much the first time. ---
**Author:** ![K364](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k364/32/5_2.png) [@K364](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/K364)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-artist-say-about-their-work-you-dont-believe/582848/38 "2011-05-24T02:30:28Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > I serious doubt Jackson Pollock and Andy Warhol’s emotional sincerity. You think they are putting us on? I used to think so about JP… dripping paint from a catwalk onto a tarp on the floor was a big joke. Until I saw “Autumn Rhythm” at the Met Museum. It’s the real deal, quite impressive. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-artist-say-about-their-work-you-dont-believe/582848/39 "2011-05-24T03:29:46Z")
There’s definitely _something_ to what Pollack was doing, given the mathematical patterns in it so easy (with the help of a computer) to distinctively recognize but so hard to recreate. Now, whether that something is art is up for debate, but it’s certainly there. ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2011, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-artist-say-about-their-work-you-dont-believe/582848/40 "2011-05-24T03:30:43Z")
I won’t say I out and out disbelieve Bryan Adams when he says “Summer of 69” is about the sex act. But I have my doubts. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-artist-say-about-their-work-you-dont-believe/582848.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-artist-say-about-their-work-you-dont-believe/582848.md?page=3)