Saturday, May 14, 2011

The Real Deal

Ask any pop music aficionado about their preferences and they’ll likely justify many of their choices based on the notion of authenticity.  That word—“authenticity”—is an especially loaded one in cultural studies.  Those in the popular press bandy it about as a badge of honour; academics will often poo-poo it as a chimera, a fantasy of rock snobs.  There are many academic justifications as to why “authenticity” doesn’t exist, but underlying these is a primarily philosophical argument.

In the seventeenth century Descartes famously pronounced that “cogito ergo sum” (I think therefore I am).  In three words he encapsulated a fundamental notion of human character: we are extensions of our thoughts.  Everything we do, therefore—our actions, choices, music preferences—are results of our essence.  Being “authentic” means being true to who we are.  In some ways, the Cartesian concept of consciousness is strangely “new age,” avant la lettre

The history of the “self” over the past 350 years is a slow shift from Cartesian essence to fraudulent pastiche.  First French and then American philosophers and aestheticians of the past forty years have finally called out humanity for its duplicity.  Our actions, choices, and, yes, music preferences, they argue, are not reflections of our inner minds, but rather conscious choices meant to reflect the kind of people we would like to be.  They usually refer to this as “decentered selfhood.”  We have no essence or “authentic” self, only a vague collection of aesthetic choices meant to reflect some imagined version of ourselves.

Enter country music.  Populist journalists of course venerate the genre as the expression of an “authentic” American spirit.  Cynics and academics, of course. deride it as a commercial construct meant to reflect a fantasy of rural life—a fantasy ever less tenable as we become more urban, sophisticated and middle class.

But as I’ve argued in this blog many times, country music at its best speaks to the way we actually live our lives.  The “Jesus and my truck” variety, as I call it, of course has no relevance to me or, if I may say, the vast majority of country music listeners.  That kind of country is indeed a fantasy of fidelity, piety and patriotism that does not nor has ever existed.  But songs about love found, love lost, household chores, drinking too much and being jealous are not imagined realities—these are experiences far more human than even most hip-hop and r&b can speak to (and I’m not knocking either of those genres).

This is all much to say that I still believe in some notion of “authenticity.”  I don’t mean to apply it in some patronizing way (as it so often is).  “Authenticity” usually only works as a label when you apply it to something both simple and exotic: Chinese pottery, Aboriginal handicrafts, the Hon. Jack Layton.  But something can indeed be authentic (no scare quotes) when it speaks to something common, shared, everyday—something real.

This week I’ve been listening to Lori McKenna’s new album.  Six summers ago I was utterly obsessed with Faith Hill’s album Fireflies—a stellar country album made all the better by two songs written by Lori McKenna.  An appearance on Oprah and a attempt at mainstream country success later, Lori McKenna is back with an indie album with more songs about being a mom (she has five children), a wife (she married young, but is now 41) and living in a working class Massachusetts town (Stoughton, a half hour’s drive south of Boston).

McKenna’s songwriting range, like her vocal range, is limited.  Almost all over her songs are about the three defining characteristics I’ve listed above.  They’re intensely personal—you almost feel a bit bad listening in.  But the specificity she brings to her songwriting is what makes her so stellar.  You might think that songs that mention Fisher Price are beyond the artistic pale, but I swear to you that nothing is more moving than her lyrical turns of phrase.  Her melodies are little more than short exclamations—sometimes pleading, sometimes exalted—but always direct.  But nothing feels more real than this.  It’s funny how songs which are so specific to one woman’s life can touch someone else so deeply.

I think that’s because she scratches below the “Jesus and my truck” version of working- and lower-middle class life.  McKenna’s not trying to convince herself to be happy with the things she has.  She’s trying to tell us about the joys and sorrows that make up her days.  And so when she sings about the television flickering in the hallway, going to her kids baseball games and hugging her husband after work, it doesn’t feel like she’s preaching about the virtues of this life.  She’s just telling you how it is.

Listening to this album makes me want to cry.  I’m not a Massachusetts housewife, but I’ve stood in the hallway after a long day, in the glow of the television, and tried to make sense of what my life is, what it’s been and where it’s going.  This music feels authentic to me.  Call me an old fashioned Cartesian.  But we are what we think.  And I think Lori McKenna is the real deal.  Check out her new album, Lorraine.

1 comment:

  1. Okay, Keith - you're an old-fashioned Cartesian. ;) Seriously, though, I really enjoyed reading this.

    ReplyDelete