Storytelling has always been at the heart of Minnesota troubadour, Charlie Parr.
Through his lived-in songwriting style, he conveys authenticity, humor and proof of a strange and interesting life. In a conversation around his new book of short stories, Five, he explained that writing stories actually came before songwriting — and for him, the two have always been the same process.
Parr grew up with a dad who often told stories of his youth from the Depression-era in a rhythmic fashion. the rhythm of storytelling was a very important piece of the puzzle for his dad, who was functionally illiterate.
After his dad died in 1995, Parr wrote down those stories in the rhythm he remembered hearing. That style of writing through rhythm sticks with him to this day. And as a reader of Parr, I understand more about his style, with little in the way of punctuation or paragraph structure.
The stories in Five are written with the same style he uses in music. Parr willingly sacrifices grammar to maintain the swing of a sentence. One story, “Henry Crow,” was once published in an edited, more “correct” form, but Parr restored the original for the book.
A common theme throughout the book of short stories is one of humanity: the error, grace, empathy, fear and struggle of the human experience, even when told through perspective of animals.
"I just tend to see them [animals] as, you know, just another person," Parr said. " ... I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility to say that they have, cognizance and souls and everything that we have. They just look a lot different."
During the conversation, Parr mentioned that he'll be heading back into the studio this December to record a new album and is already working on a second book.
Five may be Parr's first formal book, but it comes from the same root as every Parr song: a spoken story remembered, and then given rhythm again on the page.
