RARA-AVIS: :A post-modern, post-noir pop kinda post

Kevin Smith (kvnsmith@total.net)
Thu, 4 Dec 1997 14:54:34 -0400 Josh wrote:

> Would you agree that "the atmosphere" pervades the works of certain
>postmodern (or New Wave) songwriters such as Stanard Ridgway and Elvis
>Costello?

Hmmm...that's interesting. I wouldn't limit it to "postmodern" types like
Costello and Ridgway, though, Josh. Seems to me a case could be made for a
whole slew of songwriters, old and new. Many of them seem to write from a
certain hardboiled or even noir viewpoint. Certainly Warren Zevon (who once
dedicated a whole album to Ross Macdonald) writes from a hardboiled
perspective, and Springsteen's Nebraska is definitely some kinda noir,
albeit via Woody Guthrie. And speaking of Guthrie, Bob Dylan certainly
would have understood the Flitcraft parable, having constantly re-invented
himself for over thirty-five years. At least one of his albums, Empire
Burleque, is full of references to The Maltese Falcon. Greil Marcus, in the
most recent Rolling Stone, even goes so far as to call him a kind of
private eye.

"...(Dylan) works as a moralist; he works as a kind of private detective, a
private eye who takes cases most of us don't even recognize as mysteries."

And old blues guys such as Robert Johnson and Howlin' Wolf, and "country"
artists such as Johnny Cash, with their tales of murder and treachery, and
lost, doomed lives, make Costello seem like wordy, overblown Burt Bacharach.

To tell the truth, this whole hardboiled/ironic mythology that we got from
Chandler, Hammett, Bogart and a 1001 B&W crime B-flicks, has soaked right
into the core of our Western culture, influencing everything from
literature to film to music to television. Yep, that's right- Race Williams
begat David Letterman's Stupid Pet Tricks.

William Saffire, by the way, in the New York Times a few weeks back,
lamented the use of the word "noir" as an adjective for just about
everything these days. I think I'll go see if it's on the web somewhere...

Kevin Smith
Web Guy for The Thrilling Detective Web Site
For info, mailto:kvnsmith@total.net

"Well, I'll have some rotten nights after I've sent you over/But that'll
pass..."
- Seeing the Real You at Last (Bob Dylan, via Dashiell Hammett)

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