Dear Editor,
There has been some interesting gaff going around about David Dabydeen’s comments regarding my song ‘Not A Blade O’ Grass’ on a BBC World Service programme, where he declared to have found some very far-reaching and unusual interpretations of the song. I joined in with my one take on the issue in a ‘So It Go’ column, and this week in another follow-up to the back-and-forth, Frank Fyffe, who can always be relied on for valuable contributions, has added his usual balanced output to the conversations.
In a letter to the editor, Frank, or perhaps the printer’s devil, reproduced a remark from me as if I was directing it at Dr Dabydeen. In fact, my comment (“Writers are also human beings who can say stupid things. When something inane is written or uttered, whatever the source, simply consign it to the rubbish bin. Treat rubbish as rubbish.”) had been made earlier in a previous ‘So It Go’ column and it pertained not to Dabydeen but to V S Naipaul’s caustic criticisms of other writers, nations, individuals, etc.
With that innocent confusion cleared up, let me go on to say that I agree essentially with the point being made by Frank, as I did in my original column quoting Emile Mervin who took the same stance. Essentially, a writer may spend months or even years crafting a piece of material, and may have a very specific concept in mind in generating the work in private, but once the material is released for public exposure, the artist has then to understand that his/her bird has flown and people will come to that work and many will find things there that the writer did not consciously intend. My comment, “are we talking about the same song?” was partly whimsical in that it indicated the interpretation was bizarre. In fact, all that is happening there is that art is behaving like art and being, in one view, different things to different people. If, from those various reactions, some “hidden truth,” as Frank termed it, about the work is produced, all to the good. When we find more from art than the artist projected, everybody is the winner, including the artist. Indeed, especially the artist.
Yours faithfully,
Dave Martins