Writers Talking About Other Stuff: Lorrie Moore on Music

As the inaugural author interview, we thought we'd mix things up and start things out by asking a writer about something OTHER than her writing. Below, the fabulous and funny Lorrie Moore gives us the skinny on all things musical. This interview will appear in its entirety in a forthcoming issue of Dossier Journal.

ES: There are a few reasons I thought you'd be open to answering questions about music-- number one, you gave me a mix CD for my birthday, number two, you have a mellifluous speaking voice, and number three, I know you pal around with some musicians. The moment I knew that we were musically simpatico was that the mix CD you made me was entitled 'Music to Drink Gin To,' and one of my favorite songs of all time (Elvis Costello's "Almost Blue," as sung by Costello's wife, Diana Krall) appeared twice. You claim this was an accident, but I think it meant you wanted me to pay special attention to it.

LM: It was an honest-to-goodness mistake. I just wanted to make sure I didn't forget to include it. On the next CD I made I put "Rhode Island Is Famous for You" on twice. Another mistake. How could that be anything but a mistake, even put there once? There are such things as mistakes, even in CD mixing--aren't there? I'm new to this so perhaps I've entered Freudian or tea-leafed or some other fraught and signifying territory without knowing it. God help me. This could be a long interview.

ES: Is that also one of your all-time faves? What other songs might make your top five?

LM: Oh, I don't know. It just depends on which week you catch me. Right now I'm obsessed with a live recording of "I Didn't Know What Time It Was" sung very slowly and sadly by Nancy Lamott a couple weeks before she died. Usually that song is very swingy--but not here.

ES: What kind of music did your parents listen to? I found it very confusing when I got to summer camp and realized that everyone else's parents listened to a band called The Beatles. Of course, I knew Nessum Dorma by heart at age 12, which I had never realized was very weird. Were your parents musical themselves? What was playing around the house?

LM: Well, my parents listened to classical music and showtunes and folk music. Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Carousel, Joan Baez in Concert. My father played the piano a lot, and was very good at it actually.

ES: What was the first concert you ever attended? Is there anyone who you'll go see over and over again, or would like to see over and over again, if they were to play in town on a monthly basis?

LM: I don't recall at all what the first concert I ever attended was. Hmmmm. Probably the Philadelphia Orchestra with Ormandy conducting: they were in Saratoga every summer when I was young. I don't currently have a big concert-going life, being a mom and all: Is this the question where I get to whine?

ES: You've mentioned that another career you'd like to pursue is that of a rock star.

LM: I have? When and where was this? Were there strong beverages in the vicinity? I was always very shy when young and so terror would intrude upon my breathing and I could never breathe properly. I didn't even make my university chorus, though I did audition. I would have loved to have been able to sing like Janis Joplin, but never even briefly entertained the hope.

ES: Have you ever sung in public? What would the Lorrie Moore Experience be like? What other instruments would you have? I'm picturing something sort of twangy, and you in cowboy boots. I couldn't say why.

LM: Sung an entire song? Alone? I don't believe I have. I think even at that college audition, they cut me off halfway through. As for the "Experience" you're imagining, honey, you're on your own. I don't own any actual cowboy boots. I'm too impatient to break them in properly.

ES: Do you think that sad songs are especially good for writers, or that writers are particularly mopey to begin with, and it's something of a chicken/egg question?

LM: I don't believe writers are mopier than anyone else. I think dentists are famously depressive. And writers, when writing, are usually having a really good time. There are certain kinds of songs I just love, the knife-in-the-heart kind, also the Live in Vegas kind, but the writers I know tend not to share my taste. In fact, when referring to it, they refuse even to use the word "taste."

ES: Do you listen to music at all when you write?

LM: No, I really don't. Too distracting.

ES: I'm always amazed that people can listen to songs with words-- I love any reason to stop paying attention to what I'm writing, and listening to a really good song seems like such as easy one. But then again, I like lyrics. Do you pay attention to lyrics, or are you more of a melody girl?

LM: Can I be both? I want to be both and feel I am. Although the phrase "melody girl" is not one I would want emblazoned on a t-shirt or anything.

ES: There are lots of references to music in your stories, from opera to Bruce Springsteen. Is there any piece of music or musician that you've just been dying to sneak into your work, but haven't yet had the chance? A new discovery or re-discovery, perhaps?

LM: Oh, if I'm dying to, I usually do it. Right now one of my characters is writing her own lyrics: Now that's fun.

ES: If you had to write a song on the spot, what would it be called? Fast or slow? The ballad of Lorrie Moore? I think that sounds like a fantastic name for a song.

LM: I'd have a kind of waltzy thing called "Song on the Spot." A kind of bittersweet, smiling, shrugging, waving thing in three-four time, a little dry, a little slow, andante and al dente.


--Emma Straub