Wild World
Aug. 20th, 2011 10:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hafoc
Very roughly paraphrased, a blog I read said "This song sucks. He's claiming to be a wise old man, but he was a 23 year old kid whose supermodel lover was leaving him- why she ever took up with an ugly geek like that I don't know- and she was his own age. What an arrogant, manipulative liar he was."
No, it didn't suck. It was a good song, or at least it wasn't bad for the reasons given.
Maybe he thought he was so mature and understanding, but he was an idiot. Maybe he was losing his lover and thought "How would I react to this if I really was as grown-up as I wish I were?" and wrote from there. Maybe the song was a cynical attempt to manipulate her. Maybe the song was flat-out fiction, with nothing to do with his real life at all.
We don't know, and it doesn't matter. He told a good story. When it comes to art, that's all that matters.
It irks me when people say that because an artist, scientist, author, or athlete isn't a plaster saint, their work can't be any good. Or conversely, because their work is good, they must be a plaster saint. It doesn't work that way. A person's accomplishments are sometimes because of what they are inside, but also sometimes in spite of what they are inside. They are what they are, and once they're created, what the creator does in their time off can't change that, one way or the other.
I hope nobody's going to say that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories suck because he was just a middling medical doctor, who never committed a murder, stole a jewel, or hunted down anyone who did. I hope nobody's going to say my stories suck because I never piloted a starship. They are what they are, folks.
No, it didn't suck. It was a good song, or at least it wasn't bad for the reasons given.
Maybe he thought he was so mature and understanding, but he was an idiot. Maybe he was losing his lover and thought "How would I react to this if I really was as grown-up as I wish I were?" and wrote from there. Maybe the song was a cynical attempt to manipulate her. Maybe the song was flat-out fiction, with nothing to do with his real life at all.
We don't know, and it doesn't matter. He told a good story. When it comes to art, that's all that matters.
It irks me when people say that because an artist, scientist, author, or athlete isn't a plaster saint, their work can't be any good. Or conversely, because their work is good, they must be a plaster saint. It doesn't work that way. A person's accomplishments are sometimes because of what they are inside, but also sometimes in spite of what they are inside. They are what they are, and once they're created, what the creator does in their time off can't change that, one way or the other.
I hope nobody's going to say that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories suck because he was just a middling medical doctor, who never committed a murder, stole a jewel, or hunted down anyone who did. I hope nobody's going to say my stories suck because I never piloted a starship. They are what they are, folks.
