Don't Take It Personally

Is Chris Shaffer's personal life anyone's damn business?
Maybe not. Maybe what happens after Chris leaves the stage is no one's business but his.

That'd be true if he could keep what's in his head inside his head.
Chris has a long history of mining his personal life for material.
He makes the decision time and time again to share with the world his personal life. He wants to be sure the public knows he " . . . still dreams of how it used to be." He wants to be sure his audience knows that he's haunted by drugs and alcohol. He wants to be sure everyone knows he's been screwed over by his ex-wives. He writes these songs and fills them with personal details.

Then he records the songs. Then he makes thousands of copies of the songs. Then he sells the songs to people for money. He shows up where he's paid to show up on the day he's paid to show up and plays these songs to live audiences for money.

At that point, it's not his personal business any more. It's business, all right, but how can the content be considered personal when he's selling it to anyone with 10 bucks? Some people sell Amway, Chris sells his life - in song form.

Chris tends to hang on to the notion that he is true to his art the way a drowing man hangs onto a life preserver. It may be the one consistently noble element of his character. The fact that many of his songs are deeply personal lends weight to that notion.

But there are two sides to the coin. You can't write deeply personal songs and then ask your audience to leave your personal life alone.