To the Editor:

After reading David T. Lindsay’s “Death and Taxis” in MUZIK!, Vol. 5, it seems to me that neither the living nor dead are safe from this man’s unkindness.

Jim Carroll’s “People Who Died” is an unsentimental eulogy that, in a tough minded Christian way, asserts the humanity of victims who both fail and are failed by the world. By attacking this song and its spirit, disgruntled Dave relegates its author to the ranks of the “sub-average” (his term). I think the committee that nominated Carroll for a Pulitzer would disagree.

The Clash’s involvement in the Kampuchea Concert, their awareness of a world that extends beyond rock ‘n’ roll to solidarity with people fighting for dignity, self-determination or, at least, an end to their hunger, and their resolute unwillingness to be trapped into conventional stardom are laudable and (sadly) rare. But here too, Dave doesn’t think Joe Strummer quite measures up.

Bob Marley sang with verve and conviction of the need for oppressed men and women to stand nobly before their God, to leave a Babylon of compromise and deceit for a new land of love and honor. The music that he propagated with apostolic fervor had both a rhythmic subtlety and a celebratory vision that the tired pop of the 70’s desperately needed. But Dave the Dismissive would disagree.

Like Lindsay, I don’t advocate false reverence. No amount of mourning for the man will make Harry Chapin’s songs any less mawkish or banal. However, it’s not so much his art but rather the man whom Dave finds contemptible, as if his tireless struggle to end world starvation is what damns this good person.

Dave’s errors are not only those of the spirit but also of chronology and logic. While claiming the dearth of any significant music since the exits of Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent (I mourn them too, Dave), he assures us he misses Jim Morrison. Perhaps he bemoans the loss of Morrison the Poet though the caliber of Dave’s writing suggests no such reverence for language.

Perhaps Dave the Caustic, Dave the Wit would say that I can’t take a joke. But the cathartic humor of dark comics from Jonathan Swift to Lenny Bruce has always had a point; usually the puncturing of the smugness that’s another of Dave’s failings, second only to his lack of charity. Dave, like some omriiscent arbiter, sees the current sad state of music as passing unheeded because “we’re too busy bemoaning some heroin overdose victim to notice.”

Point A: Pop’s always had its share of mediocrity. For every Beatles there’s a Freddie and the Dreamers.

Point B: Logic suggests that the preponderance of poor talent can hardly be blamed on our preoccupations with the dead. Instead, certain atrophied sensibilities simply haven’t the resourcefulness or intelligence to recognize brave new music.

Dave, Jerry Lee Lewis is ailing now. It looks (God willing) like he’ll pull through. But the next time another courageous musician leaves us, keep your mouth shut.

“Reproach we may the living; not the dead:

‘Tis cowardice to bite the buried.”
-Robert Herrick

Paul Evans,

Atlanta

David T. Lindsay (who hates to be called “Dave”) has been busy moving from his train wreck in Duluth’ to one in Doraville. He could not be reached for comment.