The other CSH thread got deleted (I mean, it's still searchable but you can't post new replies in it) so I'm starting this one. I feel like I have a complicated relationship with being a "fan" of CSH, honestly I sometimes find it difficult to say I'm a fan of much anything, though, so does that say much? Well regardless I said it so :p ...
Pretty much all I wanted to say in the old thread was I really liked in "The Gun Song" the line "Why not become didactic?" Technically I guess I like these two excerpts:
"All the sentences I climbed halfway Saw the heights of what I wanted to say And crawled from word to word Trying to get back down"
"If you felt some kind of stirring
Against interpretation
Why write these songs at all?
Why not become didactic
Tell everyone on the planet
In plain English what you are"
But since this is in some ways my thread now I'll also say: Most of the time I only ever remember "Why not become didactic?" because I don't really revisit this song as a listening experience lately. I think I don't really like this song! Or I don't know if that's fair to say with such a faded memory of it. Whatever the case, initially hearing this rhetorical question was huge for me.
But anyway I've been thinking a lot about Hussie's article on the Color Composer and something someone said to me recently "I don't think any artist needs to jump the gun on wanting something that comes with fame and then going through the ringer in their mind about the attendant miseries of fame. There's always a risk when you publish [your work] that someone will read it."
I have made art dealing with concerns like these, but it's very difficult for me to look back on any of it fondly or the reaction(s) to it. I worry a lot about being overwrought or boringly, well, didactic, in an effort to be clear in what I want to communicate, or that maybe what I want to communicate is harmful or unwittingly massively embarrassing to admit. I don't really know how I want to move forward and actually make art again instead of just thinking about it.
What do you think about The Gun Song and these excerpts? Or anything here broadly I guess :p
