Being the Bad Guy

Andy Whitman is just about my favorite music critic. Among other things, he writes for Paste magazine, and I always look for his reviews first. He recently wrote a blog post for Paste extolling a record by Jacob Goldman called Revenge Songs. I haven't heard the record (it's not out yet), but I was taken by Whitman's description of it, especially a song called "Zero Integrity": I never claimed to be the better man / I've got no integrity to cling to.

Thing is, most songwriters can’t resist a little touch of pro-singer spin. Neil Young’s “guitar fighting the TV” or Paul Simon’s assurance that he, too, was “concerned with the child she carried.” It takes something for a character to reveal his own shit-heeledness without flinching. To say flat out, "I've got no integrity to cling to."

I think there's something worth exploiting in that difficulty, the tendency characters have (oh, hell, that we all have) to take that little turn away from the harsh light of self-examination and put in a little plug for themselves. Though I'm not saying I'm any good at this, at turning that light on myself. For one thing, as I've discussed in this space before, I'm no great pour-your-soul-out confessional songwriter. And the truth is, it's part of my own lowness of character to lack the forthrightness to face my own failings with that kind of courage.

So I go at this from another angle, creating characters who don't seem to realize what wretches they are. Who keep telling themselves or their lovers or whoever will listen, "Any one of you'd have done the same thing," or "I'm not the man you think I've been; / Just let me hold you close tonight." Does it make good songs? Probably not as good as those of braver writers, but I like them.