A note to folks clicking through from the Mojo article…You’ll find a more relevant “Crooked” page here.
Thanks!
K
What brings me to a song is not necessarily what a listener should take from a song. In my experience, music is no more “about” something than a person could be. To associate the images and sweat and life of “Crooked” with anything other than itself seems limiting. So, at the risk of “explaining it away,” can I tell you my crooked story?
A few months ago, an acupuncturist friend from Chicago, said to me, “I can’t watch you go through this anymore. I’m going to help you whether you like it or not.” What she was referring to was bipolar disorder. It’s true, I haven’t found much on planet earth to ease this condition which destroys bands, marriages and lives.
Music and movement help a little…lithium was amazing until its side effects prevented me from working. So I gave up the fight–I’m trapped in here–and my insides lived an up and down, back and forth, past and future, switch-flipping existence for years. I prayed that my outside could hide this world from those around me (it couldn’t).
When my friend met me in San Francisco and stuck needles all over me, I sighed, thinking, “You don’t understand. This isn’t subtle, it’s systemic; a world view, a personality, an everything. And nothing helps.”
Then the room started spinning, my heart started pounding, my brain time-tripping, a baseball-sized lump swelled up in my throat…it felt like race cars were driving my outline, but the outline wasn’t me. I had an unshakeable “phantom-body” syndrome that wasn’t inside my skin—the real me was next to the one made of skin and bones and muscles: a dark, crooked space body. So, I’m not trapped in here. I’m not in here at all.
This woman flew to New York to treat me on the road, then to New England to treat me at home. She moved the crooked body into my skin. She saved my life. Suffice it to say, acupuncture is as “not subtle” as bipolar disorder and it seems to be curing me of an illness for which western medicine has no cure. Songs still fly out unchecked, because the healthiest me is a songwriter. Knowing what it’s like to feel everything and nothing may help songs breathe; but it’s no way to live.
So that’s my “Crooked” story. Please take what this song offers as a scrim for you to view your own life pictures through and share them with me, if you’re moved to. A song shouldn’t function as a page from my diary, but as an offering for your soundtrack. That’s the highest honor afforded any musician.
Love,
Kristin
Find this song and all my recent work, in multiple formats – including lossless, free for download on my CASH Music pages. Information on how you can support the creation and distribution of this music by becoming a subscriber is here.
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Kristin Hersh
Paradoxical Undressing
Throwing Muses
Dear Kristin
All I can say for the moment is a BIG BIG THANK YOU for all that you have done all throughout. It is very humbling what you have done and reading your story here left me with a feeling I am yet to sit and to round and to name as a duly due. I was happy that you finally came to a treatment that did not compromise the most essential aspect of your being but somehow reconciled you body to soul. Your soul is alive and sourced and crowned and a victor in many relevant spheres and realms and without your overflowing, many would have felt least enticed to level up. Levelling up through you became beautiful and glorious in very appealling ways all of which and allow me to say it, are ‘sanctifying’, in simplicity, in verity and in the honeycomb of flashing fires. So once again, THANK YOU, and if it should count further to anything, this comes from a man who lived quite a significant number of years howling too, but it would not be fair to deny that the grip of disease coupled with my screaming worked to call an angel to my rescue more than once. BELIEVE ME, angels have wings and they fly and when I am not sulking beyond repair, they are such a beautiful sight. Not for once I doubted that you make heaven too and never the lesser glorious, never the lesser awestriking, in the midst of hell, in the midst of the blue. Love to you, very much.
‘Crooked’ is, purely and simply, your best track in ages – and you’ve yet to write a duff one! It’s so brooding and sinister and dark and evocative and moving. Love it.
Another dark beauty. Gothic hypno-magic. I’ve had this on repeat for oooh, about two hours now. No fear of fatigue. Your music has punctuated my life for twenty years. I can’t see (nor wish) an end to that reality.
Last month for a long car journey I made a c.d. of (in particular order) Donita Sparks’ CASH tracks, The Breeders new e.p., then ‘Gin’, ‘Coals’, ‘Sand’ & ‘Power & Light’. The first tracks got us well out of London, then as the darkness came on, the road opened up with your voice willing & moving us on. We turned off the motorway & as true night enveloped us we travelled cross-country, an atmosphere between us & the road contained in those moments spent with your music. Butterflies in my stomach, blood coarsing. We drove in silence. Spellbound.
I don’t know what else to add to that, but simply to say that that’s just a snapshot of a recent instance in my lifetime of listening to your music which impacted me in the moment, let alone any phrase (lyrical or musical) of yours that may come to me at any other time of day or night. Lucky dog indeed…
I’m so happy to hear that you are having success & feeling great benefits with accupuncture. It was great to see TM at ATP (even tho you were on early, & we were late…& missed almost half the set, argh (chews fist)!!). Much love & luck for the rest of the tour & always.
I haven’t been able to listen to this yet. (Have been away and now back at work.)
But this:
“A song shouldn’t function as a page from my diary, but as an offering for your soundtrack. ”
It’s amazing you’ve said this because whenever I listen to ‘Mississippi kite’ all I see in my head is me walking in slow motion through some unknown city with your song playing.
So many people love what you do. I’m so sorry, though, that it’s a byproduct of such a distressing and destructive illness.
Your music has been my soundtrack for the last decade and I thank you for it, every single song. When I was a lost teenager, trying to align body and spirit, someone I really looked up to played “Walking in the Dark” for me and knowing that I wasn’t alone really helped. I’ve been an admirer of you and your work ever since.
I’m glad that acupuncture is helping you. It really seems Eastern medicine holds a lot of keys that Western medicine is currently too stubborn to explore. Hopefully, that will change over time.
P.S. I like “Crooked”. I like it alot.
Thank you. Thank you for your crooked story. It gives me hope.
This is the part that I have often thought about when creating my own music, art and the like: “A song shouldn’t function as a page from my diary, but as an offering for your soundtrack. That’s the highest honor afforded any musician.”
Kristin, your music has been an ever growing soundtrack to my life as I carry you around on my iPod when I travel near or far.
I came a little late to TM but it’s still 20 years now that I’ve been listening to your music. I’ve seen you play but haven’t met you, nevertheless your songs are like old friends… thanks for introducing some new ones to me.
You are my hero. This last year has been so tumultuous. It’s been so healing to hear your story, and have this fantastic soundtrack to thrash it all out to.