NOTES ON “CAMP”

This song was written for Ecce Homo‘s 2009 production of “Leni Riefenstahl vs the 20th Century”.  I played the part of Susan Sontag. While the play was based primarily on Sontag’s essay “Facinating Fascism”, the “Notes on Camp” song served as an epilogue to the show. The music is original, and the lyrics were inspired by, and many taken directly from, the seminal 1964 essay,  “Notes on “Camp“, by Susan Sontag.

Many things in the world have not been named
Even if they have been named, many things have not yet been described

To name a sensibility,
to draw its contours and to recount its history,
requires a deep sympathy
modified by revulsion.

Stand inside! Stand outside!
Even if they have been named, many things have not been described
Stand inside! Stand outside!
These notes are for you, Mr Oscar Wilde

Make a note! Make a note!
Make a note! Make a note!
Make a note!  Notes on camp

Shall we start very generally?
Camp is a certain mode of aestheticism, it is one way
of seeing the world as an aesthetic phenomenon
not in terms of beauty, but of stylization

It is a victory of “style” over “content”
“aesthetics” over “morality”,  irony over tragedy
Convert the serious into the frivolous:
Rejoice in the unnatural, the love of artifice

It’s not a woman, but a “woman”
It is not a lamp, but a “lamp”
Put everything inside of quotations
See only surfaces through the lens of camp

Stand inside! Stand outside!
Even if they have been named, many things have not been described
Stand inside! Stand outside!
I made these notes for you, Mr Oscar Wilde

Camp is the answer to the problem
Of how to be a dandy, in the age of mass culture
Camp finds delight in coarse, common pleasure
Camp taste transcends the nausea of the replica

It asserts that good taste is not simply good taste;
that there exists, indeed, a good taste of bad taste.
The discovery of the good taste of bad taste
can be a liberation

The relation between boredom and Camp
cannot be overestimated.
Camp taste is by its nature only possible in societies
experiencing the psychopathology of affluence.

Stand inside! Stand outside!
Even if they have been named, many things have not been described
Stand inside! Stand outside!
These notes are for you, Mr Oscar Wilde

Make a note! Make a note!
Make a note! Make a note
Make a note! Notes on camp

I must attempt to explain the peculiar relation
between Camp taste and homosexuality
While it’s not true that Camp taste is homosexual taste,
there is no doubt a peculiar affinity

Homosexuals have pinned their integration into society
on promoting the aesthetic sense.
Camp is a solvent of morality.
It neutralizes moral indignation, sponsors playfulness

I will call Camp a kind of love,
A love for human nature
What it does best is to find the success
in certain passionate failures.

Stand inside! Stand outside!
Even if they have been named, many things have not been described
Stand inside! Stand outside!
I wrote these notes for you, Mr Oscar Wilde

Make a note! Make a note!
Make a note! Make a note
Make a note! Notes on camp

One is drawn to camp when one realizes “sincerity” is not enough.