Paradox

[Johanna Shafer <jshafer@truman.edu>]

Following the INTERPRETATION thread, I pose this question to the group, cos
it's something I wrestle with on a daily basis.

The consensus seems to be that "Whatever the listener hears in the music is
there for him, intentions of the singer/songwriter be damned."  Those of you
who feel that way, is the same true when you read literature?  Can you read
Euripides or Dickens or Shakespeare or Peter Reich without consideration of
what the writer intended?  And if you believe that literature can be read in
a vacuum, without consideration of context, with only your own
interpretation in your head, then whose art is it?  Is it the writer's work,
or is it your interpretation that becomes the art?  It's a sticky situation,
the stuff deconstruction is made of.

But before I set off a firestorm of flames, I think that music (and its
counterpart, poetry) is emotive in a different way from literature:  it is
the combination of sound, words, rhythm, and thoughts.  The pictures that
pop into my head when I listen to "Never Be Mine" are very different from
the ones that pop into yours, and very different from those that inspired
its creation.  Frankly, I don't necessarily want to know "why" a song was
created, because then it will lose meaning for *me.*  But certain images
that the writer uses inform the reader or listener are important.  Them
Heavy People is a nice song, but can you fully (stress, fully) appreciate it
without knowing who Gudjieff and Jesu are?  Haven't you, at least once,
logged onto Gaffaweb to find out "What the heck does Kate mean when she
sings ____"?

Just seems to me an interesting paradox for a Monday morning!

J. Shafer