8/14/2019 High Performance magazine interview/profile_Jim Carroll

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8/14/2019 High Performance magazine interview/profile_Jim Carroll

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1964/lssue 27/HIGH PERFORMANCE/31 EUGENIA H. POlOS

8/14/2019 High Performance magazine interview/profile_Jim Carroll

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Jim Carrollleads to another. Fansgiveme things. LikeIsay in an interview that I was reading theGnostic Gospels and then this girlgivesmethis book about EdgarCayce's visions.Theyjust throw 'em up onstage, like hand gre-nades that come back at you later. Most ofit's crank things, envelopes with syringesin'em, but this book had this long letter in itand the girlhad a pretty good take onwhatIwas thinking about at the time. It all getsmore and more baffling and I don't knowwhy it gives me such great pleasure to getbogged down in this stuff and then havesome sudden little illumination abo~t itYou once made the statement that lithekids need amythology." It seems that peo-ple are starved for a mythos these days;could that account for religion's attractive-ness to you?Of course. I've always said that from thebeginning. I said it on the Tom Snydershow when my first album came out, thatpunk rock is just like the Stations of theCross.What could be more punk than thisguy getting a crown of thorns, beingscourged, carrying a cross up a mountainand being crucified?What was Synder's reaction to yourtheory?He said, "Not me, of course, but somepeople might think that's very blasphe-mous." I got tons ofmail about that-youcan't believe how many nutty peoplewatch that show, all these moral majoritypeople! Alot of'em wanted to convert me.But I was converted already, and I didn'tmean what I said in any blasphemoussense. It just seemed like a very simplestatement to make. I mean, my wholemythology was Catholicism and Snyderwas asking why I called the albumCATHOLICBOY.Didyour parents have anyadverse reactionto being on the record cover once theyheard the music?No! Are you kidding? They loved it!! Imean, myparents hated the factthat Igrewup and gotinto poetrybutatthis point theydon't care. At least I'm making more of aliving, and financial security's the bottomlinewith them. Theydon't find the record-ed particularly outrageous. What's to beoutraged about? There's no songs that arereally offensive on that record, I don'tthink.It depends on your sensibility. What didRoman Polanski think of "it's too late. . ..to fall in love with Sharon Tate?"I don't know. Ispoke with Jack Nicholsonabout it once; he liked that album a lot,that's alii know.The thing about that songisthat the second linewas about ReverendJ2/HICH PERfORMANCE/Issue 27/1984

Moon being shot and we had to edit it outbecause those people are litigationhappy-"it's too late to fall in love withSharon Tate/it's too soon but a bullet'sgonna dance in the brain of ReverendMoon." I put in a more innocuous line-"it 's too soon to askme forthewords Iwantcarved on my tomb," because everyonewas setting up to die, to 0.0. any second,and thatwas the overwhelming push Iwasgetting-"Why don't you just die rightnow, it's be a much better record if youdid." It always that way, especially if yourwork has some stench of relicabout it. Butto get back to the point here, Idon't knowwhy Roman Polanski would get upsetabout that line. Iwas alwaysvery attractedto Sharon Tate-she was incredibly sexyto me..Audiences seem to plug into the song.there's no doubt.. .I remember some kid about 11 years oldquoted the whole thing to me on thebeach one time, outside ofBoston. Hewasinthrallsof ecstasy. He knew this song andhe saw me on the beach and he couldnever come to any shows because he wastoo young but he'd always listened to tpissong. I told him to come to the show thatnight and stay.backstage. I love kids thatcome to shows, littlekidscoming up toyouwith braces, likesome kidcame up to me ina parking lot outside a show in Santa Cruz,he was about 14 or 15, and he said,"Y'know, I love The BasketballDiariesbut Ihope your next book ofpoetry isn't gonnabe as academic as Living At The Movieswas." I said, "What are you, a little critic?"(laughs) But he made me think about thatmore than anybody else. Some girl justgave me the same thing-she thought myworkwas too controlled. I said, "Listen, ifthere's no control, there's no bang."Don't you think that lack of control is a di-sease that's afflicting a lot ofmodern writ-ing? It seems that everybody's hopped onthe Burroughs bandwagon. He's spawneda whole generation ofwriters who believethat "everything is permitted."It's true. Burroughsknows this. Funnythingis, that's not even a Burroughs line! "Noth-ing istrue, everything ispermitted" isfromHassan ISabbah, the founderofthe Cultofthe Assassins. He used to have these guysget high on hash, guys who were allphysicians and lawyers and astrologers,followers of his. He'd do these Jim Jonestricks, have one of his followers supposed-ly beheaded (he'd really be buried in thesand) and a week later Hassan would un-cover a basket and show the guy's headtalking, "I can't rest, I can't even die, myhead lives on, it'sbecause Idisobeyed Sab-bah." He had all these stooges and tricks,

the way Jim Jones did, pulling chickenbones outof people and sayinghe wascur-ing them. Anyway, he was the guy whosaid, "Nothing istrue, everything ispermit-ted." Burroughs has that line in every book!When I wrote that song NOTHING ISTRUEpeople said,"Where'd you get thisBurroughs line?" Burroughs has a goodtake on it but it's not his. Forme itwas justsome repetitive riff. I don't believe thatshit, for God's sake-"nothing is true;everything is permitted"-I'm too much ofa Catholic guy!let's talkaboutthe new lP, IWRITEYOURNAME.Would you say that the counter~point you mentioned earlier inreference topoetry is present inyour recorded efforts?lyrically it seems to be there but the musichas always struck me as one endless ex-panse ofno-frills rock 'n' rollsnipped to fitthe words. . .Well,J'vealwaysiked rock 'n' roll althoughIdon't think I' ll ever makea record like thatagain. I really don't know what I wanna dowith music at this point. You're right, thatcounterpoint is what I miss musically; I'vebeen working too much with just setting upa background for the lyrics. Maybe I justdon't like rock 'n' roll enough. That's theproblem. The fact isthat I don't like rock 'n'roll at all, to tell you the truth. . .But at the same time, you don't want to beFrank Sinatra or Michael Jackson. ..I couldn't be; I'm not that good of a singer.Y'know, I don't think Jackson writes hislyrics. I don't think he has enough ex-perience in the world. I can see" Beat It"more than " Billy Jean"-I don't think heknows how babies are made, never mindwriting a song about "the child is not my .son."It seems to me that America, being in aneconomic slump, is really ripe for in-nocuous, sacrificial lamb-type pop stars.Could that be why some of your recentstuff hasn't really gone over? Because peo-ple don't want to see the skin-popping sideof life right now, the ugly images?People want bullshit; they don't wantsongs that are interesting. It's completelydifferent than it was in 1980. I think ifCATHOLIC BOY came out right now itwouldn't sell a lot of records like it didthen.You'd have to wear a little more eye-shadow.. .You say that in passing but there was apoint where I was thinking about all thatpsychologicalparaphernalia.Iwore alot ofmake-up and thought, "If this wasn't such apain in the ass to do, I'd be smart to do it,because this is what people want, theywant you to get up there and be somethinglarger'-than-life." I mean, it is entertain-

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men!, after all. So maybe I'll get_ out myfucking thigh-high boots, put on more eye-liner and look pretty again on my nextrl'nml. lIul J)C'r~ulI.llly I ('.11I'1W.li t (or this~hil 10 IWI ov(~r, IIIl ! w.ay musk is riy,hl now.Your lIu,ory Ih.11pl'oplc~ W.III! fluff ill (uuy,hlill\(,~ 1II..k('s SCII~(!. WlwlI (!VI!ryOlH! W.ISasking me why my firsl ..Ibum was so suc-cessful, I said because poets have a vestedinterest in bad times. Things are gettingbetter now. I don't think it's gonna lastbutpeople see these things in a day-to-day,ephem~ral sense, you know. When thingsare bad, people look to artists to clarifythechaos. I think they should now, too-they're stupid to let up.The one big change that's occurred in popmusic is that it has traditionally beenrebellious whereas now it's becoming ob-sequious, easily manipulated by conserva-tive interests.I think thatvideohassomethingtodowiththat, actually.That raunchy,cartoon-like,cheap surrealism, like when Duran Duranhas that video of the kidwho keeps follow-ing the ball through the forest. Surrealism,ifit'snotdone right,ifit doesn't havecon-trol, then again,it'snot going to beshock-ing but just lethargic. Since music isabstract, itshould remain abstract. Imean,I've said a thousand times the reason Idon't like video with music is because ittakes awaythe joy ofjust saying,"This isoursong," unadorned, y'know. There's thisgroup R.E.M.,Iwas listening to their newrecord and there's this cut where the guykeeps saying,"I'm sorry,I'msorry... ," andI was sitting in the Chateau Marmont, ahotel in LA. (it's the "Hotel California" inthat song bythe Eagles),I was sitting therewatching this cat eating a bird in front ofthis retaining wall. Youcouldn't see a bet-ter video than that, seeing a cat killa birdwhile a guy's screaming, "I'm sorry"through an echoplex. That's what music'sabout, for God's sake!!What do you think about the new breed ofpoet-songwriter- Debora Iyall of RomeoVoid, for instance?Ireadaninterviewwithheroncewheresheseemed over-anxious to impress oneverybody the fact that she doesn't careabout poetry in formal sense. r'm big onstudyingand gettingitright.Imean, Ican'tsayJ'vefound anyrules that Ididn'twannabreak. but I wanna know what rule I'mbreaking. IfDebora lyall's a noble savagethenmorepowerto herbutthe thing Ireadwas just her going overboard to say some-Ihill~ which didll't r".tl1r h.1\'" 10 lit' :,.Iid,Slw ..Iso :,.Iid :,oll1l'lhillg .lbOUI not liking, "'1111' "IiIIt.,.---Well, from a woman's per'ipective, I'msure you can understand-But from a writers perspective, I can't.

There's a lot of woman in what I write,believe me. I've alwaysbeen very proud ofthe feminine side of mywork. Iwrite alot ofsongs in character, in a feminine voice like"Lorraine," songs like that.To wrap up, you said in an interview somemonths back that at the age of 6 you werelooking for a meeting with Christ and thatyou once invited him to watch the WorldSeries with you. Are you still looking forthat meeting?Sure. I'd love that. The World Series was aninteresting event that I thought Christmight wanna watch; it was the most spec-tacular thing I knew-it was the WorldSeries, for God's sake. The Yankees werepl.lyil1~ 111