Image by Sufjan Stevens
My Brightest Diamond
Issue #29
Shara Worden gets into a heavy conversation with the “states” musician about classical music, short attention spans, and American Idol
By Sufjan Stevens
Published: September 1st, 2006 | 12:00am
You might recognize Shara Worden’s backing vocals on Sufjan Stevens’ Illinois, but Worden’s main gig is front woman of Brooklyn’s My Brightest Diamond.
Worden grew up in Ypsilanti, Michigan, surrounded by music. Her grandfather was an Epiphone-playing traveling evangelist, her father was a National Accordion Champion, and her mother was a church organist. Trained as an opera singer, on My Brightest Diamond’s debut album, Bring Me The Workhorse, Worden sounds like early PJ Harvey meets Kate Bush with a dose of Nina Simone.
Shortly before they headed out on tour together, Stevens interviewed his Asthmatic Kitty Record label mate and snapped this photograph in the Redwood Forest. — Amy Schroeder
You studied classical music and opera in school. What do you borrow from these forms when writing your own songs?
I think I'm borrowing from classical music somewhat with dynamic range, instrumentation — the sort of dramatic quality, use of metaphor rather than strictly first-person perspective in the lyrics somewhere underneath. I hope there is the fact that I value beauty, and while that's not a strictly classical idea, it's something I feed off of in classical music. The emotional range in classical music is very broad and the musical ideas change much more rapidly than in pop songs. For myself, I want to keep finding ways to bring that depth into my songwriting.
Do you feel the pop song format is emotionally limiting or just emotionally abbreviated?
While I do think that pop songwriting has its limitations, I am enjoying the restriction. I think “emotionally abbreviated” is a nice way of looking at it. We are focusing on one emotion or musical idea for three or four minutes, and that allows you to really dig into a specific moment in time. However, modern song form doesn't offer much possibility for change, unlike a Stravinsky dance where there are many musical ideas within one piece. Songs are kind of like looking through life with a personalized magnifying glass.
I can agree with that. It's indicative of our culture. We tend to want to encounter things more immediately and within a short span of time. It's the work of the industrialization of the world, and the work of advertising. What do you find redeeming about American Idol?
Ha! You are cracking me up right now.
I’ve never seen the show. Is it the same phenomenon as Star Search, or something more?
American Idol is probably a lot like Star Search was, except that the modern audience needed to add a Jerry Springer element. We are looking for justice or to voyeuristically correct the drama in our own lives I suppose. I don't understand that phenomenon of American television — why everything must be so dramatic and overly sensationalized. I have watched American Idol only twice, and on one occasion Kelly Clarkson was performing. I have to say that she gave me chills right through the television. I am happy for her, that she has made records and is doing well. In terms of our attention span, it could be that our ability to concentrate is lessening or that we are less patient, but then Purcell, Debussy, and Schoenberg songs can be even shorter than modern pop songs; some are less than 45 seconds. More like a Half-Handed Cloud song.
American Idol is not so much a show about music but a show about the democratic process.
Yes, I think that may be a part of it. We want to feel included, to be given a voice in making decisions. American Idol must be hitting on something fundamental for the ratings to be that high. Advertising and the news often appeal either to our sex drive, to fear, or to our insecurity in order to stimulate us to buy a product or to watch a show. At the core we need to know we are special and valuable, and there are good ways and also twisted ways in American culture that those needs manifest themselves. We often define "special" by being exclusive. When we vote to eliminate contestants on a show, we are elevating ourselves in a certain way, or conversely, we participate in someone's success by affirming our favorite singer, and feel that we ourselves are validated through them. I think this is part of our obsessive fascination with celebrities. We either wish we were like them or are busy tearing them apart. It's a very strange phenomenon. Aside from that, Kelly sang this one note, and there was something really special, musically for me, and that's amazing for such a moment to be given opportunity on television. When what is real or beautiful gets past all those commercial devices, it's really powerful.
People always ask me to make distinctions between classical music and pop music, but I'm starting to think the only difference is the era.
It is interesting to think of the distinctions between classical music and pop, because you and I are trying in our work to blur those lines. Certainly there are exceptions to this, but in classical music, there is not a hierarchy of form, meaning there is no need to have a chorus, or a bridge or a verse. The form can be much more fluid and subconscious. The language of pop music tends to be more limited. The subject matter is often the same. I think we are trying to break that tendency in our own ways, you and I. Debussy will write songs about a teacup or Barber wrote songs about Pangor the cat, so in a way, they are able to focus in on an emotion or a feeling, a mood, a subject perhaps even more than in pop song. Oh, forget what I said earlier about it being emotionally abbreviated! Ultimately, what distinguishes a Kurt Weill song from an Edith Piaf song is the range — how high and low the voice goes — and the technical difficulty. For me to sing a Debussy song, I have to be in much better shape vocally than if I am to sing one of my pop songs. I keep coming to the fact that writing these songs is more immediately personal. And one day I would like to write a song about a wheat field, like a van Gogh painting, with lots of high notes, but for now, I am writing stories that I need to write.
I've mentioned this to you before, that I believe the value of the song to the writer is revealed in the revelation of the song in private. That is when the song means the most to the writer. But a song performed begins to change shape and becomes something else, and the writer begins to lose possession of it. How do you explain the way your music changes shape throughout this communication process?
You were the one who first put the idea of the "generous performer" into my thinking, years ago after you went to a Willie Nelson show and were telling me about how he played a long set with all his hits and how great his band was. I have used that story a lot for myself, that I would like to be generous and to recognize the value in playing a tune for people, even after the initial emotions have gone. That's tough because there are songs we would like to never play again, but somewhere there is the line between taking care of yourself, the performer, as a human being, and being generous to your audience by playing songs you don't like anymore. I used to think that the goal in performance was to regenerate the sensations or state of mind you were experiencing when you wrote the song, but in experimenting with that, for me, I don't think it's healthy or possible. I do have feelings when I play live, but if I went back to the same emotional space, I think it could become musically stale. I think it is more interesting to approach an old song, asking, “Where am I at emotionally today?” Or, “What in this music can I explore?” My classical-voice teacher used to say you should never sing a song the same way twice. But that's hard to do. You are asking the hard questions, Mr. Stevens.
That's my job. But I love your answers. I think you have a greater experience with popular elements in classical music, in these composers like Debussy and Purcell. Whereas I spent a lot of time listening to the pretentious epic works of Wagner and Carl Orff.
Oh come on! Wagner is hugely important. I still don't understand that Tristan chord. There are entire books, theories, people walking around with Ph.Ds on one freaking chord that that man composed. Can you believe that?
Wagner is important but he's also self-important. Big ideas sometimes get the best of us. I'm not one to talk about big ideas. I’m overcome with big ideas. I’m sick of it.
It seems like you have had this long journey of writing, arranging for yourself, being more rooted in folk, but there is a shift upon the wind, where you are writing more symphonically. What do you think is attracting you to move toward classical instrumentation?
I think I'm growing suspicious of the folk motif. I've always been in awe of the Romantics, who take a panoramic view of the world. I've been so obsessed with the microcosm of everyday life. Maybe now I need to step back and get an aerial view. That's one way of describing this change. Woodwind instruments even feel like folk instruments to me now. I think that strings are just more romantic, more sweeping, more panoramic.
I heard Randy Newman on NPR the other day, and he was talking about writing from a perspective that is not your own, and disparaging that most contemporary songwriters do not write in character. I thought that was interesting, that there has been a shift away from that kind of narrative writing. I've heard you say that though you are writing stories of other people, you are filtering them through yourself. Do you think with this shift that your focus lyrically is also shifting to the aerial view, and less from a personal narrative?
I don't think I can ever take myself out of the narrative. I always want to be involved. I’m the youngest child. I always demanded that my older siblings take me along. If they didn’t, I cried and cried for hours.
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