Youth is overrated. Young people look fucking weird, their voices are all high and annoying, and they’re dumb as hell. But goddamn, they can write good songs. In fact, people in their late teens and early twenties are the only ones to ever write good music in all of human history.
That is, until now. We sat down with the person responsible for the first recorded instance of good songwriting by someone older than the age of 24: indie punk guitarist and frontwoman Connie Whitley.
THE HARD TIMES: Paul McCartney, Patti Smith, Ian Mackaye, and Miles Davis. All musical geniuses who completely lost their songwriting abilities on their 24th birthday. Literally everything they have written after that is unlistenable garbage. What makes you different?
WHITLEY: I truly don’t know- I genuinely feel like a normal person in all other aspects of life. Some think it may be a genetic mutation. Julliard offered to team up with Columbia University to study my DNA in an attempt to isolate my music gene and study its longevity.
According to musicologists, your song “Prostitude” is the first instance of good music written by someone older than 24 years old. How did the song come about?
To be honest, most of the individual parts and the lyrics of the song were written when I was still 23. But I didn’t sit down and arrange them together until just after midnight on my 24th birthday. I was a little drunk and high from a casual birthday hang and felt inspired when I got home. That’s how “Prostitude” came about. I guess technically I was still 23 in time zones close to the International Date Line, but I was definitely 24 in my apartment in Burbank.
With such intense acclaim and praise, do you feel pressure in creating a follow-up piece of music?
Not at all. “Prostitude” now serves as a beacon of hope for older generations. I don’t wanna soil my reputation by writing some half-hearted bullshit clearly attempting to mimic my more youthful years. The fans are coming out to hear “Prostitude”, not some latter-day vain attempt to tell myself I’m still talented. I’ve learned the tragic lessons of my heroes like Aerosmith, Judas Priest, and Jay-Z. The way they didn’t stop their careers at 24 is just so, so fucking sad.
Any final words for our readers?
Do better than me. The benchmark has been pushed up, I would love to see it go higher. If you’re 24 and a half maybe it’s not too late. It probably is, but maybe not!