My wife, She Who Must Be Taunted, is a member of the Davis Square LiveJournal group, which is apparently some sort of virtual community which hovers on the boundary of “you kids get off my lawn” status, as far as I can be bothered to notice. A while back, she went to their meet-up, which is apparently a gathering where people wear their virtual nametags (“Hello, My Name Is shakeyourbooty5876”) and find out what each other looks like. This meet-up, in fine Davis Square fashion, was at the Burren.
The Burren is a fine institution – except for that infernal Irish seisiun that seems to always be going on in the front room. There are all these very intent-looking musicians, playing what seems like the same accursed song over and over and over and over again for sixteen hours at a time. The ones who are sitting out are listening very intently for their opportunity to come back in – heaven forbid that they miss the downbeat and start in with their tweedling in the wrong place. The world might end.
Now, this is all clearly slanderous. I can’t possibly hate Irish seisiun this much, can I? Oh yes, I do.
I’m a remarkably intolerant person, when it comes to music. You’d think, hovering on the edge of the folk music scene, teetering unsteadily as I do between pop, rock, and confessional singer-songwriter genres, that perhaps I’d have softened a bit – that somehow I’d welcome just about anything, given the welcome I’ve been granted. But nooooo. Here are the genres of music that make me want to open a vein: Irish seisiun. Opera (in fact, voice set to classical music, period). Mining disaster songs – actually, make that any song of uncertain origin in which everybody dies. Virtually anything by Bob Dylan.
I hate each of these passionately. And, like Irish seisiun, each of them all sound the same to me. Now, you might suggest that perhaps I just haven’t given it a chance – maybe, just maybe, if I listen to it, I’ll understand the subtleties, the variations that make it interesting, and I’ll understand what others see in it. I’m sorry, but that’s not what’s going on here. My mother, rest her soul, listened to the Metropolitan Opera every single Saturday afternoon at 2 PM, every single week for my entire childhood. And in spite of that, and the fact that I’m a fairly accomplished classical pianist, the sound of voice set to classical music still makes me reach for a weapon. Familiarity, indeed, breeds contempt.
I used to try to be ashamed of this. Surely, I thought, if so many others find these forms of music worthy, I must be missing something. I’d love to be able to say, in fact, that I realize that it’s just me – but, alas, I don’t. Over the years, I’ve grown comfortable in my own intolerant skin. I find Bob Dylan, for the most part, to be a single, undifferentiated, mushy drone, and I have no idea what’s wrong with you people.
Now, I realize that there are some folks out there who will now hear my music in a different light. “I don’t know whether I can listen to a musician who thinks the Ring Cycle is just a bunch of screeching hyenas with shields”, or “If you can’t see the magic of the hornpipe, you’re dead to me.” If you’re leaning that way, just remember: I didn’t have to tell you. I could have kept my mouth shut, and nodded politely every time someone rhapsodized about one of Dylan’s incomprehensible nine-minute, marble-mouthed epics or waxed eloquent about some soprano aria in “The Magic Flute” that only dogs can hear. I could have let you believe that I shared this musical delusion with you.
But I just can’t do that. I owe it to my public to reveal myself in all my intemperate glory. So hate me if you have to. But the chances are, I’ve got more than enough contempt for the two of us.