A Watershed Moment
“The girl, so confusing version with lorde” Artist: Charli XCX/Lorde There’s always a certain performance embedded in writing about someone else. Janet Malcolm, in her landmark 1989 essay The Journalist and the Murderer , famously argued that, at a fundamental level, journalism itself is “morally indefensible” when it involves writing about a subject without their consent. While she’s addressing New Yorker-style profiles, I think this notion extends beyond traditional journalism, creeping into any public writing—be it on Substack, in song, or elsewhere. Even in the most objective, generous writing, there’s a betrayal of confidences, omissions of context, and an inevitable loss of nuance. And when it comes to songwriters, particularly those who pen covert tributes to exes, frenemies, or critics, I can’t help but wonder if they too feel this unease. For all the bravado of a “Dear John” breakup anthem or the careful annotation of lyrics on Genius, there’s something inherently untruthful a...
