Kristin Hersh

Sometimes, the world ends for a whole month. Then, shattered and rattled, you look up and someone you know is pointing out something cool. Something Strange and Important, like bamboo dancing around in a blizzard. It shatters and rattles you out of the wicked month and into another, better one. A month that might help you through, of all things. Inject some Strange and Important into now.

“Bamboo” crawled into my ear in San Francisco. I had no idea what [Read more…] about Bamboo

In the studio, you build a song layer by layer: cement to mayonnaise, as it were. You start with the basic structure and develop the feel over a series of sonic events that eventually lead to, well, goo. Whether your goo is a room mic or a reverb, the sheen is not musical, but it holds the track together. When you’ve reached goo point, it’s time to go back to cement and start peeling away layers that serve no purpose.

“Opiates” reached goo point rather quickly, as it seemed determined not to [Read more…] about Opiates

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.

“Sand” is a road song, I think. Having known pretty much nothing but the road, my catalog is full of these (sorry about that). Many of my friends are also “tar kissers” who race around the country for music, too, learning to live without food, shelter, sleep, showers, etc., except when these “necessities” pop up as kindnesses from caring locals.

Road nature is a meadow behind a dumpster, road health is finding any food, road highs and hangovers are mixed up to the point where you are no longer in touch with the contents of [Read more…] about Sand

Coughing engines, hot coals, mid-air explosions and all the other alive, inanimate happenings that press into existence…plus a buttload of tambourine (Bob Mould: “When in doubt, tambourine!”)

After the frenetic intro, the bass becomes the star of the show, settling the song into its long-winded pocket. “Coals” demanded an extremely standard treatment: build the verses at the midway point, chorus must be anthemic (of all things) and come at the usual time (of all things), beefed up by creepy old distorted bass organ and then, of course, allow a French film score from the sixties to guest star on the bridge, for some reason.

My favorite sound in the song, though, is the diminutive lead guitar. Crunchy yet sinewy, murmuring not unpleasantly throughout, then bursting into tiny song at the end…more a ramble than a rant, a sputtering little engine that could.

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.