"Everybody's favorite songs on "Dialte" seem to be "Untouchable Face and
"Napoleon"- the two songs with the word "fuck" in the chorus.
Congradulations, Ani! My manager and dear friend, Scott is allways asking if
I can think of an another word to use. Sure I can! It's not that I have a
limited vocabulary. So why does "fuck" show up in the choruses of those two
songs? Because I wrote the lines as I would say them. To speak that way was
my real impulse, so why shouldn't I sing the songs in a way that's true to
that feeling? So the songs can be played on the radio? I'd rather live in my
own world instead of playing the FCC's game or listening to some internal
censor. Yes i could think of another word, but wouldn't replacing the
origional thought with less genuine be a teeny step on the road to writing
for some reason other than honesty or personal fulfillment? I'm not
inetrested in making decisions for the sake of becoming more palatable."
"One of the worst things for me is when people say I write things for shock
value, that my songs are unsubtle or heavy-handed. That response probably
comes form feeling threatened. We expect to hear certain things and when
somebody talks outside the parimeters of acceptable conversation or writes
songs that arn't about the usual topics people can become defensive. It's
instictive: "She said 'tampon'; I'm feeling tense." Listeners tend to focus
on what makes them uncomfortable, so they don't notice or acknowledge all
the other things that are going on in the songs."
"So many of us, myself included need to keep our sense of personal outrage
in check. Each human being's position on the planet is one of great
humility."
"I'm trying to figure out if it is possible to supersede your intelligence
and stumble forth in life with a sense of innocence."
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