Perfection Is for Punks or, Why Artistic Collaboration Is the Way to Go or, What Makes Aristotle So Damned Smart?

So, here’s the problem with having a hundred heroes: that’s a big gang to compete with. I’ll never be the poet Keats was or the philosopher that Aristotle was or the guitar player Hendrix was. I’ll never have the courage of Manet or the intelligence of Wilde. Times 20. Obviously, only a conceited asshole would dream of comparing himself to Keats or Aristotle. And I wish I could say that when I’m absorbed in their works I’m not thinking about myself. But the first time I read Othello I wrote in the margin, “I must despair of ever matching this.” And the first time I saw The Rolling Stones I thought, “That should be me up there.” So we have a word or two for conceited asshole, but what do you call somebody who knows that he is a conceited asshole and loathes himself for the fact? Well, probably something like “suicidal neurotic.” But fear not, Dear Reader! Your humble blogger will not commit self-slaughter!

New lyrics: Nobody That Well

Joseph and I had a most enjoyable conversation tonight.  We discussed the great good fortune of having found our passions, our calling, Joe’s movies, my music at a young age.  (Which is not to say that Joe, who is a great filmmaker who uses Louder Than Dirt music exclusively, is not passionate about music, but that he is intensely passionate about movies, nor that I am not passionate about music, for I certainly am, so we make movies and music together, GET IT?)  And other topics followed, Joseph emphasizing more the anomy that accompanies the excess of consumable, disposable content, and I emphasizing more LOUDER THAN DIRT IS THE GREATEST ROCK BAND IN THE WORD and afterward wrote the song that contains these lyrics.  Ah, but first I quoted Yeats

And so I must go down where all the ladders start,

In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart.

And so I give you: lyrics of the new Louder Than Dirt song!!!

How to write lyrics good like DK

A young songwriter friend of mine (you know this is DK speaking unless otherwise noted, right?) asked me how to write better lyrics, “to use metaphors and stuff.”  Kind of a big mistake, given my lust for commentary.  Indeed, I’m afraid that’s all I gave him, commentary—I think I just interpreted some of my lyrics instead of a. explaining where the song came from and b. giving general advice for songwriting.  I have noted that I am also (in my humble opinion) a lousy guitar teacher.  Part of the problem is that I’m self-taught, but the bigger part of the problem is that I started playing musical instruments in early childhood and can’t remember, much less come up with a method for, the steps in one’s technical development.  I was rather a late bloomer as a songwriter, but the situation is similar.  I’ve blotted from my memory the bad songs that one must write before establishing a decent batting average.  Well, I’ve been fretting and worrying over this topic, and as I have mentioned in earlier posts, I am all too happy to display my frets and worries

Madness and Morals: DK covers it all — finally!

It kind of bums me out (DK here) that blogs are displayed in reverse chronological order since a post often refers to the preceding one.  Nevertheless, let’s refer away.  In the last post I tried to survey Madness and Morals as a whole and instead ended up surveying my (boring) biography.  What I love about blogs is that they allow for what some people might consider a degeneracy: a public self-reflection.  Like many (song)writers, I have done the journal thing for years, and it’s both therapeutic and artistically productive to reflect, complain, worry, rhapsodize, and expose guilty feelings in writing.  New(ish) technology allows that sort of thing to made public, a fact that strikes some as both a threat to privacy and a massive new wave of narcissism—Google-Facebook and reality TV.  The fact is, as

Madness & Morals: DK bares his soul

DK here.  These pages are supposed to be devoted to Louder Than Dirt, but in typical DK fashion I have made them about me.  Hopefully I won’t neglect my dear co-workers in the sonic vineyard.

What do I want to say about Madness and Morals?  First I want to say that what I’ve been saying in these pages is an attempt to tell the truth, not to promote.  So there is a complication and indeed a conflict within me: the conflict of artistic and commercial motives.  Well, my commercial motives are virtually nil; I’m long past the desire to be rich and famous.  Now cynics in the world will remain unpersuaded, but I’ve never really had

All the Lyrics of Madness and Morals!

Madness and Morals   lyrics

1. Suspicions

Well you came home late mighty drunk last night

You weren’t walking right you weren’t talking right

When you started in asking me where I been

Ain’t no lawyer gonna fix the fix that you’re in

There’s a stranger’s voice message on my phone

When you’re sleeping baby I can hear you moan

Paranoia just won’t leave me alone

What I said what you said plant the doubting seed

In my head in your head all suspicions breed and they feed

DK goes song-by-song thru Madness and Morals: STF

“STF” is the Parental Advisory song on Madness and Morals.  Sorry.  It’s always something.  The refrain, which gives the songs its title, is “Shoot that f—– where he stands.”  Consequently, I intone the f-word 10 or 12 or 16 times throughout the piece.  Honestly, I think it’s more shocking that I vow to shoot somebody all those times than that I should use a forbidden word.  In any case, I feel I must shoulder the responsibility of justifying abusive language and reference to violence in the happy little pop tunes that make up Madness and Morals and in much of popular culture.

I recently took my daughter, who is 14, to see Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, which I found an excellent adaptation of one of my favorite novels.  In one scene, a young woman is shot dead as part of the torture of an English intelligence officer captured by the Soviets.  This event, a horrible shock in the film, is not in the novel, as I recall.  I felt bad about putting my sensitive young daughter through that shock and expressed my regret after the movie.  My daughter, with surprising wisdom, replied, “Well you know, in movies you have to show. . . .”  not just tell.  And I realized that we accept violence in art so long as it is integrated into the artwork and not just an optional extra.  This fact has been established for quite a while,