FEATURE:
Reassume Form
IN THIS PHOTO: Activist, radio presenter and actor Jameela Jamil not only inspired songs on James Blake’s Assume Form (they are a couple), but she actually worked on it, promoted Blake to tackle the way women are seen merely as ‘muses’ and ‘inspirations’, when they do so much more/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images
Changing the Way We View Women as the Songwriter’s Muse
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I saw a feature online…
IN THIS PHOTO: James Blake/PHOTO CREDIT: Amanda Charchian
that concerns James Blake and his girlfriend Jameela Jamil’s role in his album, Assume Form. He was speaking with Billboard and correcting attitudes when it comes to women and how they are seen as muses and inspirations – and the fact they deserve reappraisal, proper credit and equality. NME reported the story:
“James Blake has spoken up for his girlfriend Jameela Jamil’s role in creating his new album ‘Assume Form’.
The producer released his fourth album in January, and has previously played up the Good Place star’s role in the creation of the album.
Now, in response to a new interview by Billboard, he’s clarified her role in creating the album, saying that she (and other female partners of musicians) are often unfairly referred to as a ‘muse’ or merely ‘inspiration’.
“Not just inspired it – she actually worked on it,” Blake clarified while quote-tweeting the Billboard article. “I even said it in the interview, but people focus on ‘inspired’ because the idea of the ‘muse’ is so romantic and pervasive.”
“Women who help their partners with their album, being a sounding board and often their only emotional support during the process, almost invariably go uncredited,” Blake continued, “while majority male producers come in and make a tiny change to a track and they’re Mr. golden balls.
He finished: “Shout out to all the partners who selflessly placated a musician during a very self absorbed process like creating an album, who got the title ‘muse’ afterwards which basically amounts to being an object of affection while the musician exercises their ‘genius’”.
Shout out to all the partners who selflessly placated a musician during a very self absorbed process like creating an album, who got the title ‘muse’ afterwards which basically amounts to being an object of affection while the musician exercises their ‘genius’.
— James Blake (@jamesblake) October 7, 2019
The fact Jamil is a celebrity, perhaps, meant she was mentioned more in regards to music than another artist’s partner; maybe there was this focus on a big-name couple and how, regarding the songs of love and devotion, Jameela Jamil was a muse and form of guidance. Of course, she influenced the songs and was on Blake’s mind when he recorded the music. There is a difference between a male artist writing a song with a woman in mind and people assuming that woman was somehow interior. There has been this old image of artists’ muses who are their fountain of inspiration and spark. How often do we see things reversed and a man seen as a muse when it comes to a female artist or band? What would happen if we used language like that in that context?! I think there would be questions raised, yet when we continue to see a woman as ‘the muse’ or ‘inspiration’ nobody bats an eyelid. Blake’s words and sense of anger needs to change attitudes regarding women. Not only did Jameela Jamil help Blake bring Assume Form to the world, so many other women have been instrumental when it comes to putting the music together. From helping to write songs to producing; providing emotional stability and the strength to carry on, are we being too reductive and insulting?! I do think we need to drop words like ‘muse’ from the vocabulary of music.
To me, the idea of a woman being an artist’s muse is a very old-fashioned and dismissive term. It has been applied to women for decades. There are articles that celebrate the muse; the inspiring women behind male artists and some of their biggest songs. I want to bring in a feature that reacts to the Leonard Cohen documentary, Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love. Marianne Ihlen was often referred to as Cohen’s muse – the track, So Long, Marianne, from Songs of Leonard Cohen is about her. The article explores how pivotal and important women are often seen as secondary and unimportant when it comes to the narrative of male artists and their work:
“What are the life skills appropriate to an artist’s muse? Hotness is a given; and sexual availability, while not compulsory, has generally been appreciated. The ability to keep a house tidy is a plus, as is being supportive of the artist at all times, even if he – and it is nearly always he – is being an arsehole. It helps, of course, to be mysterious; if one is to be endlessly gazed at, it’s best not to give everything away at once. As for a life, and a career of one’s own, well, history has shown that such things are rarely tolerated.
In Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love, out later this week, the filmmaker Nick Broomfield examines the on-off relationship between the late Marianne Ihlen, a Norwegian single mother, and the poet and musician Leonard Cohen, whom she met on the Greek island of Hydra and who died just four months after her in 2016. Ihlen was immortalised in the song So Long, Marianne, and inspired Cohen to write Bird on a Wire.
Since Ihlen gets first billing in the title, one might assume that this is her story, a biopic of sorts, but instead it depicts her through the prism of the men in her life. These include the novelist Axel Jensen, who left her not long after their son, Axel Jr, was born; Cohen, the towering genius whom we are told she could never hope to tame; and Broomfield himself, who had a fling with her during a visit to Hydra in his early twenties.
We live in a time when women are seen as capable of making great art, even if the old structures ensure they don’t always get the chance. Still, the history of art, music and literature is littered with women upon whom muse status has been bestowed but whose lives appeared to be miserable and whose legacies remain indistinct.
Not all artists make their muses lie in freezing baths, but they’re not above eclipsing their careers. Ask Marianne Faithfull, who was a singer before she met Mick Jagger, though as his girlfriend became, in the immortal words of the Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham, “an angel with big tits”. No wonder her masterpiece, Broken English, didn’t emerge until after she and Mick had split. In her lifetime, the painter Frida Kahlo’s work was overlooked in favour of her artist husband, Diego Rivera, who loved nothing more than to paint his wife; only in death did she finally get the credit due to her. Camille Claudel was an artist in her own right but barely got a look-in during her relationship with the sculptor Auguste Rodin, and ended up destroying much of her work. The list of women overlooked, cast aside or actively ruined by their artist lovers goes on”.
IN THIS PHOTO: Marianne Faithful in 2009/PHOTO CREDIT: Paolo Roversi
When James Blake was speaking in his interview about the way we interpret men and women when it comes to creating…the fact a man can do some light production work and celebrated where as a woman, who not only is a major force in the artist’s life but works on the music too…she is dismissed as simply a ‘muse’ and not viewed as constructive or actually having direct impact. I do feel we need to get rid of the notion of the woman as this beauty, this sexual thing; instead, putting the woman on an equal platform and, rightly, written about in the same way we document men. It is rare to get an artist coming out and tackling lazy language and getting us to rethink how we think of music regarding songs/albums. Assume Form is the latest in a series of albums where a woman (women) are instrumental and vital. In studios, in living rooms and on tour, there are countless women who are never really written about in a big or meaningful way. It is, unfortunately, the case that the music industry is male-dominated and there is so much sexism around. Let’s hope we can say goodbye to this seemly romantic vision of the artist’s muse and actually realise it is a way of diminishing women who are, actually, heroines who are as key to the creation of the music as the artists themselves. It is wonderful to hear artists like Blake speaking up, and I do think the media and many people have to retune their perceptions regarding the women behind the music – realise that women, as Blake said, are emotional rocks, sounding boards and help get the music into shape. It is obvious that, moving forward, we need to…
PHOTO CREDIT: @thoughtcatalog/Unsplash
REASSUME form.