On the Impossible Duality of the Performing Songwriter

Margaret Atwood's take on the duality of a writer is comforting—I now have a crutch on which to lean when I start to feel inadequate as an engaging human being.

She defines, in her book Negotiating With the Dead—A Writer on Writing the merging of the writer's self with her alternate self—the Jekyll and Hyde syndrome—as something that is inherent to all humans plagued with the desire to write a story from nothing.  Even though I have more than a slight reluctance to the presumptuousness of referring to myself as a "writer", at least I can be comforted by the notion that it would sufficiently explain my social ineptitudes.  I "gave at the office" as it were.  

In other words, I have spent my endearing qualities as a human bleeding on the blank page, or more accurately, injecting my blood into my computer.  Apt then, that the writing tool therein is referred to as a "word processor", much like a food processor is to chopping and mutilating what was once shapely and colorful fruit and vegetables.  

Atwood uses a Lord Henry Wotton quote from The Picture of Dorian Gray which states: "A great poet, a really great poet, is the most unpoetical of all creatures.  Inferior poets are absolutely fascinating... he lives the poetry that he cannot write.  The others write the poetry that they dare not realize."

Atwood states that the difference between a bard (or taleteller) and a writer, is that they have the benefit of anticipating the reaction of the crowd in order to determine how best to tell the story.  In contrast, a writer sets the story to the printed page and then can remove themselves from the reviews and the genral acceptance (or refusal to accept) the story by the general public,if they wish.  As she puts it, they can go on vacation and never even read the reviews.  

Perhaps this is an appealing notion, given that they do not want to take the blame for what was written; it wasn't them, it was their writer doppelgänger.  They've left the best parts of themselves for the public's consumption, and now their skeletal, ragged, hollow self can run off to their cabin in the Rockies to reload.  A romantic notion of the writer's duality, which I do not contest.

But I would say this conundrum is triplefold for the poor performing songwriter.

For, this unfortunate wretch is meant to be an artist, a writer, a performer, a narrator... all at the same time.  They write lyrics, and therefore are bound by them, forced to breathe life into an emotion encased in amber, time and time again, even though the emotion may long since faded into obscurity.  

They have to narrate the story, while anticipating their audience, a story scripted in advance.  The performing songwriter cannot stray too far from the plot, or she will be rebuked.  How often do you think Radiohead opted not to play "Creep" in a set because (as I understand it) they hated the song and everything it represented?  Or conversely, how often were they made to play it in the early days, when people were glomming onto their popularity and they were made to fulfiull their record contract obligations?  

A songwriting friend of mine refused to play a song that we had recorded on a demo (the musician's equivalent to having a novel published) because it was written about a woman whom he no longer cared for.  The emotions attached to the song, even the bitter yet inspirational malaise surrounding their separation, was completely gone.  However, he was made to regurgitate these empty sentiments consistently, and if we had ever "made it", he would have had to grow accustomed to bringing that empty emotion out and hanging it in front of a hungry crowd, ad infinitum.  Like pinning his organs to a clothesline.  He bled to the page, and into his instrument, but could not retreat to the Rockies.  His frail, spent double was forced to the front lines, repeatedly, to endure waves of awful punishment.  Not human, rather a slate of open, raw nerves.

Consider also how the public lionizes the poor performing songwriter.  She is under constant scrutiny—both on stage and off.  During interviews, preparing for a show, performing, relaxing, sleeping... it's all genius, all of the time.  We as the puling public of pitiful proletariats cannot accept that these are simply people—they put their pants on one leg at a time, etc.  

The performing songwriter cannot hide in duality.  She can't "take a vacation".  This tormented artist needs to be exactly as such in every facet of her life, else the public will turn on her.  

Plus, the writer does not have to live those emotions, however barren they have become, every few hours, such that a songwriter may be subjected to if their song is played on radio.  Novels are not read aloud over the airwaves much anymore.  The book can simply remain closed.  On popular radio, there's naught else but songs on incessant rotation, cut with advertising. Here's the songwriter's organs brought out on a sterilized palette, then repeatedly covered and uncovered again by a thin sheet of gauze.  Petrified and lifeless organs, hardening in the stale air.

In no way does this downplay the unenviable struggle or the creative conundrum that is faced every day by the writer.  I simply offer that perhaps the performing songwriter deals with an extended set of complications—they can be neither human, nor can they be inhuman.  They are forced to be aloof and transcend.

It's no wonder where these baffling eccentricities come from, evidenced in songwriting performers such as Michael Jackson, Elton John, Tori Amos, Jim Morrison...  It's no wonder there's escape in the form of drugs and debauchery.  There's nowhere to hide, not even from yourself.  They live the impossible life.  And in return, we eat them for dinner, again and again.

Is that Creep playing on the Edge?

(burp)