From: owner-mad-mission-digest@smoe.org (mad-mission-digest) To: mad-mission-digest@smoe.org Subject: mad-mission-digest V6 #145 Reply-To: mad-mission@smoe.org Sender: owner-mad-mission-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-mad-mission-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk * If you ever wish to unsubscribe, send an email to * mad-mission-digest-request@smoe.org * with ONLY the word unsubscribe in the body of the email * . * For the latest information on Patty's tour dates, go to: * http://www.pattygriffin.net/PattyInConcert.html * OR * go to http://www.atorecords.com * . * PLEASE :) when you reply to this digest to send a post TO the list, * change the subject to reflect what your post is about. A subject * of Re: mad-mission-digest V6 #___ gives readers no clue * as to what your message is about. mad-mission-digest Thursday, April 18 2002 Volume 06 : Number 145 Today's Subjects: ----------------- MM: Silver Bell [DLMSRM@aol.com] Re: MM: Silver Bell (me too) [Chris Negrin ] MM: beautifully written piece on patti [LeeChew@aol.com] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 14:17:49 EDT From: DLMSRM@aol.com Subject: MM: Silver Bell I keep reading how wonderful the Silver Bell CD is. Does anyone know how I can get a copy?? Diane ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 11:34:52 -0700 (PDT) From: Chris Negrin Subject: Re: MM: Silver Bell (me too) me too - --Chris DLMSRM@aol.com wrote: I keep reading how wonderful the Silver Bell CD is. Does anyone know how I can get a copy?? Diane Yahoo! Tax Center - online filing with TurboTax ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 17:07:13 EDT From: LeeChew@aol.com Subject: MM: beautifully written piece on patti i get e-mail updates from slatemagazine and this happened to be one of=20 them.....i thought the patti list people would appreciate=20 it.........enjoy.......lee chew In a message dated 4/17/2002 10:10:06 P Eastern Standard Time,=20 SlateMagazine_039073@msnnewsletters.customer-email.com writes: > culturebox > Songwriter Savant > Where do Patty Griffin's songs come from? > By Daniel Menaker > Posted Wednesday, April 17, 2002, at 12:51 PM PT >=20 >=20 > Songwriters often say that they don't know where their works come from,=20 > that they seem to come from outside themselves. In any given interview you= =20 > might hear Bono, Alanis Morissette, Gillian Welch, or John Hiatt say so.=20 > Last week I talked to the accomplished and idiosyncratic=20 > country/pop/folk/whatever singer/songwriter Patty Griffin=E2=80=94on the d= ay before=20 > the release of her third CD, 1000 Kisses (ATO Records)=E2=80=94and she was= =20 > insistent on this very point: that there is something bigger than just=20 > herself involved in writing her songs.=20 >=20 > For a long time, these kinds of artistic disavowals struck me as coy, or=20 > merely attempts at modesty, or, conversely, grandiose claims of divine or=20 > spiritual inspiration. Or as an effort to inject interest and connectednes= s=20 > into a process that is often lonely, tedious, frustrating, heartbreaking,=20 > and unsuccessful. But recently, with 40 years' worth of listening and=20 > editing and writing experience perhaps reaching a critical mass, I've come= =20 > to realize that most people who make this sort of artist-savant claim=20 > actually believe and mean exactly what they say.=20 >=20 > Griffin is a good case in point. Like many songwriters (her work has been=20 > covered by the likes of Emmylou Harris and the Dixie Chicks), she sometime= s=20 > starts with the music=E2=80=94with a phrase or a bit of melody, with a gui= tar riff=E2=80=94 > and the words come later. But when they do, "they seem to come from=20 > nowhere," she says=E2=80=94"they just sort of pop out." At other times, sh= e simply=20 > sits and makes silly rhymes. "For 20 minutes or a half an hour I'll just=20 > make nonsense rhymes or just rhymes about my dog," she says. "And then=20 > serious ones begin to happen." Songwriting can be a physical discipline fo= r=20 > her, as well. "Often I have to move my body in a certain way, like=20 > exercising, to begin to get into the right rhythm for writing a song." Whe= n=20 > she said this, she moved her shoulders around in a swimming kind of way, t= o=20 > show what she meant. (Onstage, when she isn't playing the guitar, Griffin'= s=20 > arms become anemonelike, tentacular, in a distinctive, wavy style; from fa= r=20 > away=E2=80=94as when I saw her open for the Dixie Chicks at Radio City Mus= ic Hall a=20 > while back, and, before that, for Harris at the Beacon Theater in New York= =E2=80=94 > these movements look mannered, but closer up, they seemed entirely=20 > natural.) >=20 > Her lyrics, which often repeat themselves in repeated musical phrases, are= =20 > trancelike, as well=E2=80=94as if the author were in some way possessed. I= n "Mary,"=20 > an anthemic three-chord song whose words appear to marry Jesus' mother and= =20 > Mary Magdalene and Everywoman, from Griffin's second CD, she sings:=20 >=20 > Mary, >=20 > You're covered in roses >=20 > You're covered in ashes >=20 > You're covered in rain >=20 > You're covered in babies, >=20 > You're covered in slashes, >=20 > You're covered in wilderness, >=20 > You're covered in stains. >=20 > And from the new CD, in "Be Careful," another three- or four-chorder,=20 > similarly poignant about the general lot of women: "Be careful how you ben= d=20 > me/ Be careful where you send me/ Careful how you end me ..." This chorus=20 > is preceded by haunting and even more incantational verses that are=20 > essentially lists of women in different attitudes and situations ("All the= =20 > girls on the telephone/ All the girls sitting all alone =E2=80=A6" etc.). >=20 > It's not surprising that Griffin and many others like her honestly feel in= =20 > the grip of something "beyond" themselves, feel "inspired" (a word whose=20 > root means "breathe in," as the oracle breathed in psychoactive fumes at=20 > Delphi), when they are writing music. These creative experiences have a=20 > long, grand tradition and literature. (Plato, an early proponent of this=20 > idea, says that "all good poets, epic as well as lyric, composed their=20 > beautiful poems not by art but because they are inspired and possessed.")=20 > What did come as something of a surprise to me in our conversation was the= =20 > vehemence of Griffin's resistance to the possibility that she and she alon= e=20 > is responsible for her music. When I said I thought that "inspiration"=20 > might actually not be anything mystical but just the unconscious, creative= =20 > right brain delivering artifacts to the conscious left hemisphere, she not= =20 > only disagreed but seemed upset about the notion. "There has be something=20 > more than that," she said. "The mystery is beyond that. The fact that=20 > you're writing about experiences you've never had shows that. I mean,=20 > sometimes the whole room alters when I'm writing a song." >=20 > Part of Griffin's unwillingness to take full authorial credit for her work= =20 > may have to do with the fact that she appears to be a truly self-effacing=20 > person, and she has known hard times: a bad marriage, six years of=20 > waitressing at Pizzeria Uno in Boston, classic record-industry horror=20 > stories. She is one of seven children, was born in Old Town, Maine, and is= =20 > from a family that has had to work hard for a living. She has lived and=20 > feels keenly the lot of the marginal, especially working-class women and=20 > outcasts of various kinds. Her songs reflect often these concerns: "Tony,"= =20 > about a gay boy in high school "with breasts like a girl" who commits=20 > suicide; "Making Pies," on the new CD, about a bakery worker who does the=20 > same tedious job every day in order to make a living; the quasi-feminist=20 > songs "Mary" and "Be Careful"; Bruce Springsteen's "Stolen Car"; "Chief,"=20 > on the new CD, about a nonfunctional Native American Army vet; etc.=20 >=20 > When she talks about these songs, it's clear that she wants them to=20 > express, in their lyrical way, the suffering associated with broad social=20 > problems. She says, for example: "There's an imbalance when if a woman goe= s=20 > out for a walk at 3 in the morning and something happens to her it was=20 > somehow her fault, and with a man that's not true." So it makes sense that= =20 > she would believe so passionately that she is somehow channeling these=20 > elegiac, quasi-protest songs. She needs to believe that she is being spoke= n=20 > through, and may fear that taking the credit=E2=80=94being a musical auteu= r=E2=80=94will=20 > undermine what she sees as a sort of mission.=20 >=20 > In a limited way, she's wrong, as every other artist and Plato are when=20 > they assert that the human artist is the instrument of some greater force.= =20 > Unless the person involved is one of the many plagiarists at large these=20 > days, he and he alone made the work. But in a broader way she's quite=20 > right. The brain is, from one way of looking at it, the receptacle=E2=80= =94the=20 > vessel=E2=80=94for all kinds of information, data, stimuli from the outsid= e world,=20 > and, often without any intellectual plan, the mind of the artist will=20 > synthesize and structure and give emotional depth to some portion of these= =20 > stimuli, will chew them up, and spit out art. In that way the artist is an= =20 > instrument after all=E2=80=94an instrument played by the inchoate world ar= ound him. >=20 > ************************************************************ >=20 >=20 Return-Path: Received: from rly-xf04.mx.aol.com (rly-xf04.mail.aol.com [172.20.105.228]) by air-xf05.mail.aol.com (v85.3) with ESMTP id MAILINXF51-0417221006; Wed, 17 Apr 2002 22:10:06 -0400 Received: from svcds19.customer-email.com (svcds19.customer-email.com [63.236.119.149]) by rly-xf04.mx.aol.com (v84.10) with ESMTP id MAILRELAYINXF48-0417220944; Wed, 17 Apr 2002 22:09:44 -0400 Received: from PickupDirectory by svcds19.customer-email.com with SMTP (Microsoft Exchange Internet Mail Service Version 5.5.2653.13) id JDQC5P8X; Wed, 17 Apr 2002 19:09:11 -0700 From: "Slate Magazine" To: Subject: Slate Culture: Songwriter Savant Date: Wed, 17 Apr 2002 18:27:21 -0700 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Cq_Job: 39073 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4522.1200 Message-ID: <200204172209.08WKPOa010274@rly-xf04.mx.aol.com> X-Mailer: Unknown (No Version) culturebox Songwriter Savant Where do Patty Griffin's songs come from? By Daniel Menaker Posted Wednesday, April 17, 2002, at 12:51 PM PT Songwriters often say that they don't know where their works come from, that they seem to come from outside themselves. In any given interview you might hear Bono, Alanis Morissette, Gillian Welch, or John Hiatt say so. Last week I talked to the accomplished and idiosyncratic country/pop/folk/whatever singer/songwriter Patty Griffinon the day before the release of her third CD, 1000 Kisses (ATO Records)and she was insistent on this very point: that there is something bigger than just herself involved in writing her songs. For a long time, these kinds of artistic disavowals struck me as coy, or merely attempts at modesty, or, conversely, grandiose claims of divine or spiritual inspiration. Or as an effort to inject interest and connectedness into a process that is often lonely, tedious, frustrating, heartbreaking, and unsuccessful. But recently, with 40 years' worth of listening and editing and writing experience perhaps reaching a critical mass, I've come to realize that most people who make this sort of artist-savant claim actually believe and mean exactly what they say. Griffin is a good case in point. Like many songwriters (her work has been covered by the likes of Emmylou Harris and the Dixie Chicks), she sometimes starts with the musicwith a phrase or a bit of melody, with a guitar riffand the words come later. But when they do, "they seem to come from nowhere," she says"they just sort of pop out." At other times, she simply sits and makes silly rhymes. "For 20 minutes or a half an hour I'll just make nonsense rhymes or just rhymes about my dog," she says. "And then serious ones begin to happen." Songwriting can be a physical discipline for her, as well. "Often I have to move my body in a certain way, like exercising, to begin to get into the right rhythm for writing a song." When she said this, she moved her shoulders around in a swimming kind of way, to show what she meant. (Onstage, when she isn't playing the guitar, Griffin's arms become anemonelike, tentacular, in a distinctive, wavy style; from far awayas when I saw her open for the Dixie Chicks at Radio City Music Hall a while back, and, before that, for Harris at the Beacon Theater in New Yorkthese movements look mannered, but closer up, they seemed entirely natural.) Her lyrics, which often repeat themselves in repeated musical phrases, are trancelike, as wellas if the author were in some way possessed. In "Mary," an anthemic three-chord song whose words appear to marry Jesus' mother and Mary Magdalene and Everywoman, from Griffin's second CD, she sings: Mary, You're covered in roses You're covered in ashes You're covered in rain You're covered in babies, You're covered in slashes, You're covered in wilderness, You're covered in stains. And from the new CD, in "Be Careful," another three- or four-chorder, similarly poignant about the general lot of women: "Be careful how you bend me/ Be careful where you send me/ Careful how you end me ..." This chorus is preceded by haunting and even more incantational verses that are essentially lists of women in different attitudes and situations ("All the girls on the telephone/ All the girls sitting all alone " etc.). It's not surprising that Griffin and many others like her honestly feel in the grip of something "beyond" themselves, feel "inspired" (a word whose root means "breathe in," as the oracle breathed in psychoactive fumes at Delphi), when they are writing music. These creative experiences have a long, grand tradition and literature. (Plato, an early proponent of this idea, says that "all good poets, epic as well as lyric, composed their beautiful poems not by art but because they are inspired and possessed.") What did come as something of a surprise to me in our conversation was the vehemence of Griffin's resistance to the possibility that she and she alone is responsible for her music. When I said I thought that "inspiration" might actually not be anything mystical but just the unconscious, creative right brain delivering artifacts to the conscious left hemisphere, she not only disagreed but seemed upset about the notion. "There has be something more than that," she said. "The mystery is beyond that. The fact that you're writing about experiences you've never had shows that. I mean, sometimes the whole room alters when I'm writing a song." Part of Griffin's unwillingness to take full authorial credit for her work may have to do with the fact that she appears to be a truly self-effacing person, and she has known hard times: a bad marriage, six years of waitressing at Pizzeria Uno in Boston, classic record-industry horror stories. She is one of seven children, was born in Old Town, Maine, and is from a family that has had to work hard for a living. She has lived and feels keenly the lot of the marginal, especially working-class women and outcasts of various kinds. Her songs reflect often these concerns: "Tony," about a gay boy in high school "with breasts like a girl" who commits suicide; "Making Pies," on the new CD, about a bakery worker who does the same tedious job every day in order to make a living; the quasi-feminist songs "Mary" and "Be Careful"; Bruce Springsteen's "Stolen Car"; "Chief," on the new CD, about a nonfunctional Native American Army vet; etc. When she talks about these songs, it's clear that she wants them to express, in their lyrical way, the suffering associated with broad social problems. She says, for example: "There's an imbalance when if a woman goes out for a walk at 3 in the morning and something happens to her it was somehow her fault, and with a man that's not true." So it makes sense that she would believe so passionately that she is somehow channeling these elegiac, quasi-protest songs. She needs to believe that she is being spoken through, and may fear that taking the creditbeing a musical auteurwill undermine what she sees as a sort of mission. In a limited way, she's wrong, as every other artist and Plato are when they assert that the human artist is the instrument of some greater force. Unless the person involved is one of the many plagiarists at large these days, he and he alone made the work. But in a broader way she's quite right. The brain is, from one way of looking at it, the receptaclethe vesselfor all kinds of information, data, stimuli from the outside world, and, often without any intellectual plan, the mind of the artist will synthesize and structure and give emotional depth to some portion of these stimuli, will chew them up, and spit out art. In that way the artist is an instrument after allan instrument played by the inchoate world around him. ************************************************************ Also in today's Slate: http://go.msn.com/nl/150914.asp explainer: What's next for convicted felon Rep. James Traficant Jr.? http://go.msn.com/nl/150915.asp politics: The Bush family and the Jews. http://go.msn.com/nl/150916.asp best of the fray: Why the Catholic Church is like a stripper, and other comments from readers. http://go.msn.com/nl/150917.asp - -------------------------------------------------------------------------- WANT TO UNSUBSCRIBE? Reply to this message with the word 'UNSUBSCRIBE' in the SUBJECT line. OR Unsubscribe by visiting MSN's newsletter site. http://newsletters.msn.com/signin.asp?SRC=1 - -------------------------------------------------------------------------- QUESTIONS or FEEDBACK? http://newsletters.msn.com/link.asp?L=feedback - -------------------------------------------------------------------------- NEED TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE? http://newsletters.msn.com/link.asp?L=support This email was sent to: leechew@aol.com ------------------------------ End of mad-mission-digest V6 #145 *********************************