This is the sixth in a series of blog entries about the songs on the upcoming album Hello Cruel World, to be released January 2012. Originally posted at www.gretchenpeters.com/blog.
Las Vegas, 2007
There’s a man out here puts his head in the mouth of a crocodile
Puts the whole thing in, takes it out and gives the crowd a great big smile
And they walk away with their illusions of safety safely intact
And they tell their little wide-eyed kids it’s only an act
Picasso said that Art is a lie which makes us realize truth. It’s an act of death-defying. It’s a Hail Mary pass at eternity. The artist creates an illusion. The illusion is made of pieces of herself. Her blood, her tears, her sweat. Broken bones, broken hearts, broken lives. All of these glittering things are held together with hope and baling wire, to create something true.
The artist’s job is to “comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable”. She’s embracing failure, uncertainty, fear, death. Holding up a mirror.
Making you look.
They say I got a death wish, yeah, but I don’t think that’s true
As far as I can see it’s less about me and more about you
You see it ain’t your fears so much as what your fears reveal
I’m just the woman on the wheel
“Woman On The Wheel” by Gretchen Peters
©2008 Sony/ATV Cross Keys Publishing & Gretchen Peters Music (ASCAP)
from the upcoming album Hello Cruel World
photo by Gretchen Peters (all rights reserved)
