May 2, 2007

DevBan

okay, i've been listening to Devendra Barnhart's Cripple Crow pretty exclusively all week, needless to say i love the album, like, listen-to-the-record-all-the-way-through-then-begin-all-over-again love...but what the fuck is up with all the pederasty stuff...and it's tricky, you don't really even notice what the hell Devendra is singing about until like the third listen...and then you're like, huh?...

Little Boys
In the shower I get my breathing done
I hold my breath and I wait for the day to come
Oh little Billy, little Timmy, little Jimmy
You're the one
I may not look it, but I swear my heart is young
For so many
Little boys I want to marry
I see plenty
of little boys i want to marry
I see plenty little kids i've yet to have

OR

I Feel Like a Child
From my womb to my tomb
I guess I'll always be a child
Yeah some people try and treat me like a man
Well I guess they just don't understand
I'm a little child

and then the song about having Chinese Children...

eck...but the album is so amazing...i don't know what to think.
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3 comments:

Hayes said...

mr.sakkis, this sounds like so many of the criticisms of our own mr. ginsberg, (only our own in the following sense), don't you also remember making this comment about the overt homopederasty of collected and selected ginsy...i mean i remember a conversation we had about this in not so certain terms, and is devendra part of NAMBLA as ginsy was, and if so what does this continue to say about art, humans and whether or not this is a disreputable, or defendable, or relevant, or disgusting, or acceptable position for an artist, or for that matter a human being? How does it compare booms?

1:47 AM
John Sakkis said...

devendra, as far as i know, isn't a member of nambla...though he defends the lyrics by saying something to the effect of "we just watched a nambla documentary, so i wanted to write a song from that point of view..." which doesn't jive with me at all for two reasons

1. because cripple crow isn't a concept record. so, to suddenly throw on a concept song, with a dubious topic such as pedophilia, near the end of an otherwise pretty straight forward folkie/ tropacalia homage makes no sense.

and 2. because...who the fuck sits around watching a nambla documentary?!!!! where the hell do you even get a nambla documentary?! i mean, it's not something you find in your local library's DVD collection, or even Best Buy, and they sell Faces of Death!!!

i'm not sure i follow you on the "what does this continue to say about art, humans and whether or not this is a disreputable, or defendable...position for an artist"

i'm not sure if it says anything other than said artist has scary leanings towards sexualizing children...

i mean, Darger's work is amazing but anybody who tells you they're not sort of creeped out by it is lying...to me that's Barnhart, i love the album but feel a bit unerved after listening to it.

8:37 AM
François Luong said...

I don't think Lauren K. is too creeped out by Darger's work ... Well, she didn't seem too much weirded out by it when we were going over his artbooks

10:51 AM

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