THE POWER OF AN AUDIENCE: Trust the Art, Not the Artist
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The Artists' Stand
So if the audience is in complete control, why would the songwriter even trouble themselves with writing a lyric that will inevitably be misread at some point? The whole concept of song is to connect with an audience, thus for most songwriters, any interpretation is a good interpretation. Also, many songwriters are fans themselves and are overly familiar with the power of the audience. Songwriter Jay Farrar of Son Volt explains, "Usually I don't like to explain what was on my mind in terms of writing, in terms of music. That's the way I prefer to leave it (with the listeners). When people have explained what they were trying to write about in a song liked or have listened to, and it's nowhere close to what I thought it was about, it's disappointing" (Wilkins, 11). Farrar seems to realize that the power and the imagination of an audience helps give added depth and meaning to the words that he writes.
In a similar fashion, Pete Townshend of the Who discussed how an audience's interpretation can even be more valid than the artist' original intent. Townshend once remarked, "It somehow goes to show that 'trust the art, not the artist' tag that people put on Dylan's silence about his work could be a good idea. To me, "Mighty Quinn" is about the five Perfect Masters of age, the best of all being Meher Baba of course, to Dylan it's probably about gardening, or the joys of placing dog shit in the garbage to foul up Alan J. Weberman" (Morse, 7). Farrar and Townshend would both agree that audiences do not manipulate text or improperly decode lyrics, but they are the ones that actually give the text its true meaning.


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