"The songs become the show, which is how it should be"
About this Quote
A quiet manifesto disguised as a shrug. When Kristin Hersh says, "The songs become the show, which is how it should be", she is drawing a hard line against the modern live-music economy that treats performance as content: a spectacle optimized for clips, merch, and moments that photograph well. Her phrasing is bluntly corrective. Not "could be" or "I like it when" but "should be" - the kind of small, stubborn moral claim musicians make when they have watched the art get wrapped in too much packaging.
The intent is practical and protective: let the material carry the night. The subtext is that too many gigs now are built like product launches, where the set is secondary to the branding: the banter calibrated, the lighting dramatic, the narrative pre-sold. Hersh flips that hierarchy. If the songs are the show, then the performance becomes a kind of conduit rather than a display case; the musician's job is to disappear just enough for the writing to land.
Pointedly, she doesn't say "the performance" becomes the show. She says "the songs". That word choice credits the composition - craft, structure, lyric, melody - over charisma. It's also a democratic gesture toward the audience: you're not being sold an experience; you're being invited into a shared encounter with the work itself.
Context matters here. Hersh comes from an alternative tradition suspicious of theatrical polish and corporate gloss, where authenticity isn't a costume but a survival strategy. In an era when live music is one of the few reliable revenue streams and pressure mounts to "make it an event", her line reads like a refusal to confuse volume with meaning.
The intent is practical and protective: let the material carry the night. The subtext is that too many gigs now are built like product launches, where the set is secondary to the branding: the banter calibrated, the lighting dramatic, the narrative pre-sold. Hersh flips that hierarchy. If the songs are the show, then the performance becomes a kind of conduit rather than a display case; the musician's job is to disappear just enough for the writing to land.
Pointedly, she doesn't say "the performance" becomes the show. She says "the songs". That word choice credits the composition - craft, structure, lyric, melody - over charisma. It's also a democratic gesture toward the audience: you're not being sold an experience; you're being invited into a shared encounter with the work itself.
Context matters here. Hersh comes from an alternative tradition suspicious of theatrical polish and corporate gloss, where authenticity isn't a costume but a survival strategy. In an era when live music is one of the few reliable revenue streams and pressure mounts to "make it an event", her line reads like a refusal to confuse volume with meaning.
Quote Details
| Topic | Music |
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