Would Orwell listen to Sticky Fingers?

Orwell was a firm defender of the distinction between art and artist.

On the off chance that you actually clicked on this article in the hope of finding out if twentieth-century novelist and essayist George Orwell would have been a fan of reggae/rock group Sticky Fingers, I’m afraid I’m about to disappoint you. Orwell’s tastes were more literary and political, not musical, and determining with any certainty whether he would have been a fan of the band’s discography is something that you’ll just have to guess yourself.

That said, it is undoubtedly interesting to consider what Orwell’s attitude to the group would have been given the seemingly endless scandals and rumours of which they are the subject. I mention Orwell specifically because he wrote an astoundingly prescient essay on the subject of talented, yet morally questionable, artists, that provides great insight into the Sticky Fingers situation, or any similar drama.

The essay in question is titled ‘Benefit of Clergy: Some Notes on Salvador Dali’. It was written in 1944 following the publication of Dali’s autobiography, which itself must be a fascinating read. In it, Dali confesses, and Orwell relays, a long list of gob-smacking tales that make Sticky Fingers’ frontman Dylan Frost look like Mahatma Gandhi and Mother Theresa’s long-lost lovechild.

Dali, it seems, was a certifiable bastard. He took pleasure from kicking his younger sister in the head, throwing a little boy off of a suspension bridge, and trampling on a girl “until they had to tear her, bleeding, out of [his] reach”. He displayed a penchant for torturing animals, manipulating and causing psychological pain to women, necrophilia, and physical violence: and this is just what he was prepared to admit to. As Orwell puts it, Dali “seems to have as good an outfit of perversions as anyone could wish for”. And, of his autobiography, he surmises: “if it were possible for a book to give a physical stink off its pages, this one would”. Yet Orwell is also clear that Dali “is not a fraud. He has fifty times more talent than most of the people who would denounce his morals and jeer at his paintings”.

Dali’s ‘The Persistence of Memory’ (1931). Today, the artist is best remembered as a leading proponent of surrealism, but as Orwell noted, his personal behaviour was morally atrocious.

And herein lies the dilemma faced by many a generation over many a cultural figure; with Sticky Fingers being just one contemporary example. The band has made undeniably good music: ‘How to Fly’, ‘Australia Street’ and ‘Rum Rage’ are modern Australian classics, and I challenge any bloke who’s had his heart broken not to feel something when ‘These Girls’ gets a play. Yet, on the other hand, there are the well-documented allegations of racist abuse, misogyny, violent behaviour, and quite a bit more.

So, what to do? Well, Orwell’s response is clear: “one ought to be able to hold in one’s head simultaneously the two facts that Dali is a good draughtsman and a disgusting human being. The one does not invalidate or, in a sense, affect the other”. Put differently, we should have no qualms in asserting that Sticky Fingers are both a quality band, and fall far short of being moral paragons.

What Orwell advised against were the two camps that this middle position lies between. On the one side were those who are “unable to admit that what is morally degraded can be aesthetically right”, and who cannot see that even individuals seemingly lacking in ethics can produce work with artistic merit. On the other side are those who question your aesthetic sensibilities, and where you are “looked upon as a savage”, when you assert that an artist is a “dirty little scoundrel”. Both these views ignore a certain, almost self-evident, reality: namely, that flawed people can produce quality art. And liking someone’s art is not an endorsement of the artist, just as being repulsed by an artist’s behaviour doesn’t make their art any worse.

So sit down, have a drink, put on Caress Your Soul and enjoy it. Just don’t think that copying the band’s behaviour is going to make you many friends any time soon…

Oliver Friendship is a fourth-year PPE student and a semi-regular contributor to Statecraft.

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