(no subject)

[jfb]

Here's another quote from a Liz Phair review:

When the Supremes released "Love Child," Diana Ross had no conceivable justification for singing that she started her life in an old, cold, run-down tenement slum, other than that Motown's songwriters presumably believed that potential record-buyers liked to think she had. You can hardly get more cynical than that.

Here's a justification for singing it: Because that's how the song goes. Elvis didn't record "Jailhouse Rock" in prison. Johnny Cash never had "25 Minutes to Go". And the walrus, as we now know, was not John but Paul. They're songs, not memoirs.

But the over-the-top drama with which Ross sings it sold the song, both figuratively and literally; it sounds as lovely, as exhilarating, and as cathartic as if she really meant it.

She did mean it. It just wasn't about her.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, and Juliana Hatfield never had a sister. I FEEL SO BETRAYED

--Doug

[dongle.livejournal.com]

Wait - does that mean Bob Dylan never used too much force when helping a woman out of a jam?

[jfb.livejournal.com]

And since Perfect Tommy isn't on LiveJournal, I'll steal his line:

Perfect Tommy says, "i didn't think johnny cash's name was really sue"

[artname.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and let's talk about all those so-called "writers" who just make stuff up.

There's a Spencer Holst story about someone who thinks that all stories in books are true and sets out to become a writer ..

[jfb.livejournal.com]

That synopsis made me laugh.

From "True Confessions Story" by Spencer Holst

[artname.livejournal.com]

She decided she would become a writer.

However at twenty the poor girl had still never read anything other than comic books and "true confessions" magazines.

Well, she decides she'c going to be a writer ... what that meant to her was that she should write true confession stories. Only ... when she read those things she actually believed them, she actually thought they were true, and not just formula stories written by hack writers.

Well, if she's going to write a true confessions story she ash to have something to confess, but she has nothing to write about, so she decides that she needs some "experience"; so she goes to Chicago and finds a bar that to her looks "evil-looking," picks up a guy, and sure enough, he steals her money, and does her wrong.

[from The Language of Cats and Other Stories by Spencer Holst, Avon, 1971 http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0380013177/103-9431451-7607069]

[And I might add, holy crap copies on Amazon are being offered for $900.]

Re: From "True Confessions Story" by Spencer Holst

[jfb.livejournal.com]

Well, so far, I prefer the synopsis. Save me $900 I guess.