Interesting Fact...

...I learned in the current issue of Word magazine. Writing about the vexed issue of class in rock music, David Hepworth observes that 'Bruce Springsteen's daughter is a champion showjumper'. Can this be true? It certainly can. And back in, say, 1965, what would people have made of the caption to a photograph in the current issue of Vanity Fair?: 'Sir Mick Jagger, the Maharani and Maharaja of Jodhpur, and L'Wren Scott.'

In his article, Hepworth argues that of course rock stars are social climbers. Yes, yes, but then when why does Bruce Springsteen still dress like a longshoreman? The idea of authenticity in pop music (and in literature and in art) is so slippery that it's hard to know where to begin. But I sometimes feel that the most 'authentic' of all pop performers were people like Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra, poor boys who had made good, who were grateful for it and were putting on a show and never pretended anything else.

PS Looking at Tom Waits, I sometimes feel like saying to him: don't you get tired pretending to be Tom Waits all the time?