Music and Meaning: the exclusion of women and the romantisation of men

So again, this post has come out of a discussion with fuckpoliteness. It concerns the way that men are allowed a special association with meaningfulness, depth and sincerity in music, poetry and really all art. We all know the cliche of the depressed, lonely male figure who pours his heart into his art, creating brilliant songs, poems, whatever. This man seems to be able to gain access to a realm of the emotional that women are excluded from, unable to attain for whatever reason. I will cite two immediate examples to get my thinking started. The first is a scene in the Bob Dylan-inspired film ‘I’m Not There’ (which is watchable for any Dylan fan). Dylan is sitting at a cafe with his wife and two friends (also a male/female couple). Dylan declares that women cannot be poets. His wife is flabbergasted, as is her female companion. It is remarkable that Dylan can make this comment given his professional and personal relationship with Joan Beaz. It is even more mindboggling given the popularity of the brilliant Joni Mitchell in the 1960s. The second example I want to open up concerns a writing by Nick Cave. Cave, in the forward to his ‘Love Songs’, goes through a list of musicians he believes come close to appreciating how to craft a love song. He mentions Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Van Morrison, The Dirty Three….a few others. All male. No women whatsoever. But it doesn’t end here. Not only are women absent from this list, but there is then a polemic example utilised to discuss the dangerously shallow lyrics of pop music when it deals with issues of love. The example is a Kylie Minogue song. On one level I agree with Cave’s point: in some respects women have been made to package their music in specific ways; to sell their sexiness before their message; or perhaps sexiness is their message (I am thinking of the pop tune with the line ‘don’t you wish your girlfriend was hot like me’). But it is a little insulting. Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, Janis Joplin, Ani Difranco, Sinead O’Conner, Emmylou Harris, Beth Orton, Pat Banatar (‘Love is a Battlefield’)! Anyway, this is the start of a series that will read some of these male and female texts in detail.