Kristin Hersh Talks About Her 'Musical Shin'

Posted on Aug 26th 2010 7:00AM by Matt Glazebrook
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Jordi Vidal, Redferns

It's easy to imagine songwriters using different parts of their body to create their compositions. If Bob Dylan's tunes sound like they come from his head then perhaps Bruce Springsteen's emanate from his heart, and Prince's from somewhere further south. According to singer-songwriter Kristin Hersh, in contrast, her music emerges from a more unlikely body part: a rather battered left shin.

"It's true!" the Throwing Muses frontwoman tells The Quietus in an extensive interview. "It was broken in half in an accident -- my foot came off, and it was underneath my leg. While I was still in shock I stuck my foot back on my leg."

"I also sustained a double concussion in the accident which caused me to start hearing songs in the first place – but I was always clear where they were coming from," she continues. "It was my left shin. And when I played, it would lift up and just mangle itself again in order to get the songs out. And I got self conscious about that, so I learned to keep it still, but it's not really still. It's twisting and tworking and trying to get the song out of itself, whenever I play."

The Rhode Island-raised alt-rock veteran is currently "paring ... down" some 40 songs to form a new Throwing Muses LP. Hersh has also recorded a new album with side-project '50 Ft Wave', which she describes as "sort of a requiem" for late friend and collaborator Vic Chesnutt. Her latest solo release, 'Crooked' -- a hardcover book of essays that comes with MP3 codes for an accompanying album of tunes -- was issued last month.