Talk:Kristin Hersh

Untitled
Early in the history of this article, probably a few weeks or months after it began, I believe I used jump linked footnotes instead of end notes, then I changed to end note References while thinking I was supposed to because I thought people had said footnotes made people jump back and forth distractingly. The original footnotes could likely be found easily in the article's History file (not the talk page history file). Note that I recently learned that footnotes are preferred to end notes, so people may want to go back and add footnotes from the references list if they feel like it, or if I were still editing articles, I would myself, if it is learned that footnotes are preferred. In fact, you could take the References list and rewrite the article if you like, with your own new footnotes to items you think are more significant than what might have previously been emphasized, and editors might, now that there is more space, correspond with one another about future research issues at the bottom of the page. Emerman 21:39, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but this page requires changes
I love KH, you love KH, but this page (though mostly excellent) reads more like a fanzine letter than an encyclopedia article. Try and make it conform more to NPOV guidelines. Let me know if you need any help. Christianjb 12:27, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Sorry to sound grouchy, but can the main picture be changed? Cursivekinna (talk) 01:58, 23 December 2009 (UTC)


 * If you can find a better picture that is free, yes. —C.Fred (talk) 02:05, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Kristin's Response
( from http://www.throwingmusic.com/blog/ )

27 September 2006 And The Rest

On tour with my band last week, I read a preview of our show which quoted the Wickipedia definition of my name. Meaning, Kristin Hersh = "this". It never occurred to me that I might even have a definition, but I understand that while this seems surreal to me, it's not unusual. Lots of people's names have definitions now. The problem for me was that, included in my Wickipedia definition, was the statement that I write songs about "marriage and motherhood".

Immediately I worked myself into a feminist froth "How many male songwriters are married with children? Tons of 'em! But does anybody say their songs are about marriage and fatherhood? No! Their songs are about anything they want them to be about 'cause they're people! Women aren't allowed to be people, they're just women!" etc. Billy played along, but I could tell he was only mildly infuriated, and probably only because I was talking so much.

"You can change your Wickipedia entry, you know," he said. "Why don't you just make it say what it you think it should say?"

Yeah, make it say what it should say, I thought. And I thought about it some more. And I kept thinking about it for the next few days. Tell them what my songs are REALLY about...right...

Of course, I have no idea what my songs are "really" about. They just are. Also, I suspect that some of them might be about marriage and motherhood, of all things, but not in the way you might think. Personal experience and pages out of one's diary aside, songs are simply sound and images. They're snapshots, in color, sweat included. What's a snapshot of a whole marriage look like, anyway?

I flashed on one of the greatest things I've ever seen. A million years ago, at a high school party. A real high school party with the 80's equivalents of jocks and cheerleaders And The Rest. There was this...how do I put it? Ugly girl, I guess. She was the hot girls' class pet.

All hot girls know about the Nancy Drew phenomenon, that titian-haired Nancy was only titian-haired Nancy (is titian even a color outside of Nancy's hair?) because she stood between "pudgy" Bess and "boyish" George. In my high school, standing next to pudgy, boyish Cindy was an honor. To show kindness to pudgy, boyish Cindy meant serious points on the human kindness scale, too, so she was invited to every party. The poor girl was exhausted.

Particularly because, as ugly girls tend to do, she got seriously wasted at every opportunity. On this particular night, she was wasted on a disturbing and inventive mixture of sweet alcoholic things and by the time I made it to the party she was already violently ill. For some reason, she'd headed down to the basement and was sitting on the bottom step of the basement stairs, staring at her giant feet. A crowd of partiers had gathered around the basement door to stare and whisper. "Cindy's really sick--someone's gonna have to go down there and hold her hair."

But no one moved. And I wasn't popular enough to hold the hair of someone who served such a high-ranking function. So we all just watched as Cindy's head hung lower and lower and people listed all the gooey things she'd had to drink. Then my old friend Steve pushed his way through.

Steve was a football player with nothing to prove except that jocks can be kind and intelligent. He was a boy of few words with a sweet smile and a wicked sense of humor and now he was bravely making his way down the basement stairs. Perfect, I thought. He's popular enough to be allowed near the class pet and nice enough to say the right thing and coax her back up the stairs where she can puke politely -- into a toilet.

Steve sat down on the bottom step next to Cindy and said nothing. We all held our breath. He looked down at his giant feet, but still he said nothing. "What are they doing?" someone whispered. But before anyone could answer, Cindy let go. All four giant feet were covered with copious amounts of vomit which slowly spread out in front of them in a kind of beige lake. Neither of them moved.

"What are they doing?" the same person asked again.

"I don't know," I answered, but I guessed that they were fighting internal battles. Which turned out to be true, because the next moment, Steve lost it. He was in training -- he had had no schnapps, no Bailey's, no blackberry brandy and yet his stomach was no match for the beige lake. He heaved like a hero and the lake grew, spreading out into the darkness of the basement. Then he heaved again and then he just sat there, next to Cindy, in silence. Which is when I left the party.

Apparently, they sat like that for a long time, but no one I know remembers the end of the story. It's so nice that we all just remember them sitting side by side, in the cool of the basement, the most underappreciated room in the house, together, puking. What a snapshot, in color, sweat included.

My poor husband, that this is my favorite image of marriage, but honestly, if I ever write a song as perfect as that moment, I just might deserve that Wickipedia entry.

Love, Kristin

-

In the talk page history file is displayed my edit notes in reference to Hersh's blog. This entailed a long list of article references in lengthy comments by me discussing how the article didn't actually say she only writes about "marriage" prior to someone editing it. However, to provide space for other people to conduct editing discussions on future topics related to this article, instead of over-discussing an artist's blog entry, I am withdrawing my original lengthy comments. You can view my thoughts on this in the talk page history file, and below are replies from Marriedtofilm, unedited, to the long comment and list of articles that explained my view. Since I don't really have any dispute with the edits that were made or even the blog other than I didn't actually intend to say she only writes about marriage, there is no point to leaving the long passages up and I retract them, refactoring to give other people room to work on their edit notations to each other. If no one had replied, I wouldn't even want to include my refactored reply to Marriedtofilm either.

I really don't have an opinion on the blog comment at all any more. I think it is always good for people to periodically remind wikipedia to be careful in doing articles, which is all she did. I don't think anything I said in my long notes was important enough to fill up this page like I did previously, nor do I agree with myself particularly now and prefer retracting and giving other people room to talk about any future editing issues they encounter or about footnoting needs if any. Emerman 21:30, 26 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Of these random articles, only the first two are opinions of what her music is about, and with that, this artist is notoriously ambiguous about the "meaning" of her songs when asked to speak about them. I'm not saying positively she doesn't write about marriage and montherhood, I'm just saying that with this artist, is very hard to define exactly what what her songs are saying and they are open to personal interpretation.  Just to add to this literary monkey wrench, an LA Weekly article describes her writing in different terms:


 * Lewis, Judith (March 11, 2004) "She writes songs about snowmobiles and men who speak in “fucked-up military time,” about twisted conversations and senseless rules, and about who knows what — often the words resonate but make no logical sense. On her most recent solo record, The Grotto, her songs seemed more than ever to be inspired by alien powers. (“I see a snake and a girl in the snow,” she sings on “Snake Oil.” She still aspires to be a herpetologist.)"


 * As for the other article quotes, they simply address that she has a family, not confirming it is the subject of her music.


 * As for the minor edit I made, I choose to change "marriage and motherhood" to "life" as it's arguably a more accurate description of her music despite being a more general term. After all, the the word "life" covers "snowmobiles and men who speak in 'fucked-up military time,' about twisted conversations and senseless rules" in addition to "marriage and motherhood".  --Marriedtofilm 21:42, 14 October 2006 (UTC)


 * My notations were prompted by the discussion on this page by Hersh, not your edit. Nobody said there was anything wrong with your edit, but until now you didn't cite your source before making the change (which could have been done in this case in a History file "Edit Summary" notation, but your Edit Summary told people to look at the Talk file to see Kristin's comments in the talk page as your reason, which is not a proper wikipedia edit reason re: npov, but it's ok as you have since noted a citation source above). Your article reference is from one of the articles I myself added to the Reference list, therefore, it's already in the article citations area, and that's very good. [...] Your edit was fine however and again, I did not change it, as you know. Emerman 00:05, 15 October 2006 (UTC) and add'l sentence & links Emerman 06:01, 15 October 2006 (UTC).
 * It does seem necessary to clarify that I didn't feel dictated by the subject's opinion. It did inspire me to take a serious look at the article, especially the opening paragraphs that are a general introduction to this artist, but only felt it appropriate to make that minor change as it's clear the article is a well written description of the subject.  I do regret not putting all of this in the edit notation as it seems I left the wrong impression.  Like alot of editors, I try to be as brief as possible in those.  In this case, the notation was brief to a fault.  And yes, it would have been better to cite other opinions of  what her music is about.  I'm a big fan of this artist, as it seems you are.  Sometimes fans take for granted that others understand that the subject matters she writes about are as varied as they are poetic. --Marriedtofilm 00:38, 15 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I've rewritten the opening paragraph (a few times now). It's a bit easier (but not much) to describe personal music in a journalistic article--not so much in encyclopedic style. I've currently left it as a broad description on the style, without going into specific themes. Originally I had followed the tone of the original article, listing motherhood, childhood, mental illness, as subject matter, but with Hersh's long career and many songs at this point, it's not enough to list three topics as song inspirations. And realistically I don't know what she's singing about half the time--it all works with the composition as a whole, as far as I'm concerned. Anyway, this was my mini-struggle and I suppose the struggle will continue. I love her story here by the way, thanks for posting it. Steve was aces and her marriage analogy is apt. --Utilizer (talk) 19:40, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Reference List
Since so many of the references listed under "Sources" are now broken links and can't be properly slotted into the article as footnotes (I tried looking at older histories but can't find any indication of where the footnotes were originally intended), perhaps future edits can continue to build on the reference list (using footnotes) and at some point the source list should be trimmed or eliminated all together. Perhaps print publications can remain as sources, but all broken links can go, since they no longer work as reference. Other suggestions for cleaning this up? - --Utilizer (talk) 02:10, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm gong through the old source list, deleting any broken links, integrating any links I can within the the article as footnotes, and finding new citations to use as footnotes as well. I'm rewriting/editing for "flow" for an article on someone who's had a rich and complex recording and touring career. Bear with me as I work it out. Also, finding some nice live-show photos in the Commons, so I'll work some of those in as well. --Utilizer (talk) 22:36, 1 July 2016 (UTC)