Nov 042008

I’ve been promising/threatening to write this RTH Glossary entry for a while now, so here goes.

We mean it, maaannnnn!

Sincerity fallacy: The idea that the quality of a song (or of any literary or artistic work) can be measured by the extent to which it sincerely reflects the beliefs, emotions, or experiences of its creator. This is not to say that a “sincere” song is necessarily a bad song, merely that its sincerity is not a useful tool in judging its merit.

The idea that sincerity matters is a holdover from the Romantic era. The Romantic artist was supposed to have been a special creature who felt more deeply than ordinary people, and thus his poetry or music was thought to embody these deep emotions and give the reader or listener access to states of being he or she could not ordinarily experience. This gives rise to a corollary of the sincerity fallacy – the idea that more powerful emotions, whether greater joy or deeper pain, lead to greater works of art. To take an example from a recent RTH thread, because Phil Lesh’s father was dying while the bassist was writing (the music to) “Box of Rain”, the song is thought to achieve a level of profundity it might otherwise not have.

And this idea leads to another favorite RTH charge – backstory alert! When discussing the merits of a particular piece of music, allusions to the life history of the artist of the “real life” experiences that are depicted in the song are always suspect. The backstory of a song or album may be interesting, but any use of it to bolster an argument regarding the quality of said song or album leaves one open to being on the receiving end of a severe backstory-alert smackdown.

Awareness of the dangers of the sincerity fallacy is an important corrective to dangerous assumptions, among even the most sophisticated rock fans. We are in a sense still living in the Romantic era. But it’s easy to go too far in the other direction and end up with an attitude that all song lyrics are simply word games and nothing means anything to anybody. If you actually knew a songwriter personally, I think you might be justified in basing at least some of your opinion of his or her work on what you knew about the backstory. But in our media saturated age it’s all too easy to think you know about an artist’s life, but what you know is filtered through publicists, journalists, etc., and you’re better off sticking to the song itself. The problem is that there’s all that media out there leading us away from the song and toward the songwriter. And if you say you’re talking about authenticity and not sincerity, you’re going to to have to prove to me what the difference is or I’m not buying it.

All of this was brought into focus for me recently by Randy Newman, the master of the unreliable narrator. In recent years Newman has started working more autobiographically. There’s a song on his new album, Harps & Angels, called “Potholes”, which he introduces in concert as “the truest song I’ve ever written.” He claims all of the details in the song happened exactly as he relates them in the lyrics. In the linked video that follows he performs and talks about the song:

WATCH! Even Randy Newman is susceptible to the Sincerity Fallacy!

Newman is that last person you’d expect to fall victim to the sincerity fallacy. He’s a good case study. Does any of this backstory matter?


  15 Responses to “The Sincerity Fallacy”

  1. general slocum

    Steve, you are mainly saying here that sincerity is only untrustworthy “as backstory” because backstory is of dubious value inherently, and because backstory is notoriously susceptible to manipulation for nefarious reasons. But isn’t sincerity, like diction, intonation, chops, and so on, just another facet of a song to be considered?

    Production, whether under threat of supernatural retribution, a lá Jimmy Page, or whether achieved by whispering “muscle shoals” over the *analog* tape, whatever… It still comes down to how it sounds. Right? I have a recording of a guy who says he recorded a bass clarinet solo on his apartment balcony in Beirut during a missile strike. Odd, minimal tones on the bass clarinet, interspersed by faraway explosions. I never really questioned the backstory, because 1) If you want to invent something, what a ridiculous thing to invent, and 2) if you wanted to invent a bass clarinet solo during a missile strike, I would have mixed the bombs heavier and a little more frequent for dramatic effect. But even if it turns out to be fiction, I must say thus far it has worked for me, so I will always have 2007-2008, the period when this song was real to me.

    Anyhow, it seems the trick here is to only measure what sincerity seems to come through the mic and speakers to you and not the sincerity quoted in the CD review. Odd thought, too: if, for example, Johnny Cash was insincere about his gospel or spiritual tunes, wouldn’t he have been better at conveying sincerity?

  2. General, it’s certainly possible to talk about how the feeling of sincerity is created in a song, and I don’t think Steve is saying otherwise. He’s talking about the way sincerity is talked about as something beyond the music that supposedly makes the music better.

  3. general slocum

    I thought the discussion was also of audible sincerity. I am always reminded of the New Sincerity movement of the early 90s, of which some of the Replacements seemed to be a precursor. That little catch in the throat that became ubiquitous for a while there. Someone can be very sincere, obviously, about making music that is very supercilious. Look at Cab Calloway, or most of Motown, for example.

  4. This sincerity/back story thing always confuses. Is someone arguing that Sinatra’s ’50s ballads aren’t better because of what he was going thru with Ava Gardner? Or Dylan vis-a-vis Blood On The Tracks?

    If not, what is being argued? That you don’t need to know this to appreciate In The Wee Small Hours? Because there’s nothing there? Or even if there is something there? That what Sinatra was going thru had nothing to do with those performances?

    Help me out here.

  5. hrrundivbakshi

    A: Sinatra’s “Only the Lonely” is an awesome album; you can really feel his pain on that one. Riddle’s lush, melancholy arrangements transport Frank’s vocals into territory so dark, it’s near soul-crushing. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, I love that record!

    B: Sinatra’s “Only the Lonely” is an amazing album because he recorded it right after Ava Gardner dumped him. He could’ve had any woman in the world, but the only one he ever truly loved dropped him like a three-foot putt. I love that record!

  6. I’m not really sure Newman is a victim of the sincerity fallacy. Something funny happened to him, and he decided to turn it into a song. He’s pointing out that what happens in real life often exceeds what we could

    And keep in mind, he’s not saying that
    it’s his best song. If he did, then you’d have a stronger case, I think.

  7. Mr. Moderator

    I think what BigSteve is trying to get at is NOT that sincerity in itself is a fallacy but thata arguing for the strength of a song or album on the basis of the artist’s sincerity holds no weight.

    I think Blood on the Tracks is a perfect example of this. How many times is that cited as a masterpiece in large part because of the PAIN Dylan was going through? For my own tastes, I’ve always found Blood… to be little more than a pleasant “comeback” album with maybe two great songs/performances. As for the sincerity of Dylan’s expression, I’ve never felt the need to buy it. Where’s the painful interview with Dylan to guide us through the supposed storyline of the album? Where is the history of a sympathetic, sincere Dylan whose marital woes I really should care about as long as he’s cranking out A+ versions of songs Don McLean would have died for recording? Dylan keeps his private life private. I think the whole sincerity/backstory thing is more powerful for proto-Oprah artists like Lennon. Yes, there are a couple of songs on that album I can read into Dylan’s divorce and maybe could have applied to a breakup in my youth, but that doesn’t mean the album should be thought of by me any better than my ears tell me.

  8. But maybe your ears tell you it’s as good as you think it is because of the sincerity/back story. Maybe without that, your ears would think less of it.

    Are we talking about the same thing?

  9. Mr. Moderator

    I believe we’re talking about the same thing, and I believe we’re talking about the same thing BigSteve has tried to define. I’m not sure what BigSteve’s stance would be in your case, but my feeling is, if that’s what helps any of us like an album in the privacy of our own homes, so be it, but to use claims of the power of sincerity and backstory in intelligently discussing an album in a high-minded venue like Rock Town Hall holds little weight. I THINK that’s similar to what BigSteve would say in this case. BigSteve?

    Didn’t Mike Rutherford write the biggest hit for Mike + the Mechanics after the death of his mom or something like that? Do any of us like it better because of that? He was very sincere in writing it.

  10. hrrundivbakshi

    I’m on board with you, Mod. I think you’ve got it.

  11. hrrundivbakshi

    There’s also “piling on” backstory in know-it-all fashion after you’ve said all you need to without it. That’s just rock nerd look-at-how-big-my-dick-is-ism — like padding out a term paper with endless citations just so it’ll weigh more and feel more important when it’s in the instructor’s hands.

  12. alexmagic

    Is the problem, specifically, when interest in/obsession with the backstory eclipses the song or album itself?

    I’ll go back to Beck, and the “this time he really means it!” critical swooning that came with his Sea Change album. It seemed like people were throwing out what they thought about his previous albums because now they could perceive some kind of ‘real’ emotional connection to hang a review on.

    There’s probably a second argument here, too, about whether the artist’s experience has to be real in order to properly create an emotional impact with a – in this case – listener. There’s no doubt that a genuine emotional experience can have great impact on someone’s music, but I think you still have to allow for artifice or writing in character as viable means for a successful song or album as you would for a book or film. A great musician should be capable of creating an emotional work without having hit those particular highs or lows, like that Dustin Hoffman/Laurence Olivier “why don’t you just try acting?” anecdote.

    Is “Maggot Brain” better because of the story about Eddie Hazel being told to play like his mother just died? Does it matter to a listener in the long run whether you played a line like your mother died vs. playing a line because your mother died? And while it may be better because he was told to play that way, does knowing that story affect your enjoyment of the song?

  13. BigSteve

    I think alex gets pretty close to my views on the subject. The important thing is that the feelings etc get into the grooves, and how they get there is irrelevant.

    I think it’s foolish to think you know the identity of the only woman Frank Sinatra ever loved. A singer could experience heartbreak and yet record an album of heartbroken songs that are completely unconvincing. And a singer could record a great heartbreak album while completely content. And don’t say an artist can’t portray what they haven’t experienced. Actors do it all the time.

    There was a cartoon I would have reproduced for this thread had it not been copyrighted. In it a trainer is telling a group of prospective salesmen “The key to salesmanship is sincerity, and once you’ve learned to fake that you’ve got it made!”

  14. 2000 Man

    I think I agree with BigSteve. Backstory has nothing to do with my enjoyment of a song. I think sincerity is important, but more the perception of sincerity than anything else. Mick Jagger hasn’t been sincere in public since 1962, but on most records, he sounds like he really means it. But it’s not just him singing, it’s that perfectly placed chord or piano fill that helps make him sound that much more sincere. That’s what professionals do. They sound sincere.

    I think the sincerity and backstory I can get behind is the kind of story where whether or not the musicians are successful, making music is what they’re going to do, and they’re going to do things as much the way they want to as they can. Mick Collins may say that The Dirtbombs exist so that he can have extra money to buy comic books, but I don’t buy that for a second. His music is important for him and he probably barely beaks even. I think at this point in the game he knows that he’s not going to do a mega tour with U2 opening for him, but he’s still putting his ass in a van and playing in bars. He’s got a job that can pay his bills, but the music is an itch he has to scratch.

    Then there’s a band like Kiss, who have flat out said that if they could have become millionaires playing country songs, they would have. I think that’s why even though a few of their songs are pretty fun, most people don’t take them seriously. They aren’t much different from AC/DC if you ask me, but AC/DC never seemed like they’d chuck it all for hit record.

    Maybe that’s all a bunch of music snobbery on my part, but that’s kinda how I see it.

  15. I don’t think sincerity is the right word when discussing the emotional aspect of music. Hmmm… maybe, ‘resonance?’ (to borrow a term from George Staristin). Its not so important to me that an artist went through whatever it is that they’re singing about, but more that they can convince me that they did within the song.

    An example I can think of is Bizzare Love Triangle, by New Order. There’s not much of background to it, and the lyrics are vauge, but the singer manages to convey a feeling of confusion and frustation enough that it strikes a chord with me.

    and yes, i feel like resonance is really important, because emotional involvement into an album makes it a more rewarding experience, i think. Two relatively modern bands that i can think of, The Flaming Lips and Cafe Tacuba (who are incredible, and totally deserve a discussion of their own) have become more convincing when it comes to conveying emotions through the years, and while they didn’t neccesarily improve incredibly as songwriters, it certainly made an impact on the quality of their records (let’s ignore At War with the Mystics in this, though!), i mean, Sino, Cafe Tacuba’s latest album, is just short of incredible (except for some filler), and is much more emotionally involving than their earlier music (even if they’ve abandoned a lot of the mexican folk influences they used to have).

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