Tim Minchin: 'I really don't like upsetting people' from The Guardian, 28 September 2013
Okay, maybe it's a bit strong to call him an idol. I find his songs hilarious. I loved Matilda (apart from the crude and unnecessarily horrible depiction of the brother, but that's another story and probably irrelevant since the brother didn't have any songs so presumably Minchin had little or nothing to do with his characterisation). And his stand-up material is funny enough - but, let's face it, many in the audience are just waiting for the next song to start.
But why must he come over all thin-skinned, vindictive and petulant?
Exhibit A:
Phil Daoust gave him a very negative review in The Guardian (funnily enough), just before he really hit the big time. Did Tim shrug it off and move on? No, he wrote a song which included the hilarious line "I hope one of your family members dies".
Oh dear. Is it just me? (Maybe it is.) I don't find it funny. I find it unpleasant. But I find his other songs funny. Even the polemics. Okay, especially the polemics.
Phil Daoust, on the other hand, responded to that song by writing: "The song makes me wince a bit, though not because I've actually listened to it... Life's too short and I've already done my bit by sitting through that show in Edinburgh." Yes, he didn't reciprocate by wishing death on anyone.
Exhibit B:
"I've got a lot of red in my hair but I'm not a ginge."
Er... That means you've got ginger hair. Which is fine and lovely and natural - anyone who judges people based on their hair colour is clearly an idiot. But I don't even begin to understand how someone with ginger hair can write a song about having ginger hair and then deny having ginger hair.
Maybe the joke didn't come across in the article.
Besides, as all erudite BBC-watching people will have learned from watching QI, ginger-haired people were called red-heads because there didn't used to be a word for 'orange' until the fruit came to England in the year whenever-the-hell-it-was.
Hence the red squirrel (which is orange), the red kite (which is orange), the red deer (which is orange) and the red hair (which is orange, or ginger if you prefer).
The song If I Didn't Have You is about his wife and I won't describe it because I don't want to put my spin on it. Listen to it for yourself. Then consider this, in Tim's own words from the interview:
"Sarah didn't like it. She thought it was lazy. She said: 'You are better than that. You are doing a song about how you can **** other people now you are famous.' I told her: 'That is not what the song is about, darling, you are going to have to listen again' – and she did."
(By the way, I have absolutely no problem with swearing but I just don't want it on this blog. You might think that means I have a problem with swearing. That's your decision. I don't hope any of your family members die.)
Let's think about what he said, to his wife, about her opinion of a song he wrote about her. He told her that she was wrong and that she had misunderstood it. He told her to listen to it again. She did. He doesn't say whether that changed her mind. (I didn't cut that out - it's not in the original article.)
As an author there are more hints, tips, rules, etc than anyone can possibly process. But one important point, in my opinion, is that your audience is never wrong. If they haven't understood something it's because the author hasn't explained it properly.
Just because the author thinks what they've written has a particular meaning, that doesn't mean that everyone will agree. And if the author needs them to agree, then the author needs to write it better.
I think the song is clever and funny - but then I'm not the butt of the jokes in it. He might argue that she isn't either. I think he's sort of right - I think she's one of the butts of the jokes. We can debate who the others are - but that's for another day.
And I wish a long, healthy and happy life to Tim Minchin, his family and his friends. I look forward to the next tour. But I won't be hanging around for an autograph afterwards.
Peace.
P.S. Oh, and by the way, I've got a book out.
Maybe I should have put that first to save you the bother of reading this far. Yes, I've got a book out!
I'd be delighted to get a review, even a one-star review from Phil Daoust would be fine. After all, there's no such thing as bad publicity. Maybe.
Proper postscript - right of reply.
Tim Minchin said the following to me via Twitter:
"not only is that blog really mean-spirited, it shows a lack of understanding of the subjectivity of those profile pieces."
"I didn't choose to talk about the things in that interview. The Journo did."
I responded:
"...but I still love your work. Maybe some criticism also applies to @guardiannews. Mean-spirited? Really?"
"If I'd really wanted to be mean-spirited, I'd have also criticised the Matilda songbook for putting page turns in awkward places"
...and that's it. I think this dead horse has now been flogged sufficiently.
