Question for Roderick: Seattle Music Is Either Overly Serious or Ironic. What Gives?

John Roderick is the singer and songwriter responsible for Seattle's the Long Winters. Send your questions to jroderick@seattleweekly.com

Hey, John: Why the so serious of tone in much of Seattle's music? And, then on the other side, why when it's not serious, it's just ironic? -- Anonymous

Seattle is a songwriter's town, rather than a musician's town, which means the focus is on individual "geniuses" rather than chops or jams. This alone doesn't mean it has to be so deadly serious--there are some great songwriters who write happy, or at least merry music--but Seattle was profoundly influenced by two factors: the Scandinavian conviction that celebration is unseemly, and the Punk Rock belief that raw emotion is the source of unvarnished truth.

These two unfortunate misconceptions combined in Seattle to make a culture where multiple generations of kids whimper about the time their babysitter almost touched their pee-pee, while dozens of other kids smirk and/or weep. This has been so ingrained that the only way for kids to have fun is by pretending that "fun-having" is a massive art prank.