Singer-Songwriter Ditty Names Charles Bukowski as Inspiration in Rolling Stone Interview

Charles Bukowski photo via Michael Fox/YouTube; Ditty photo via Larry T Hill/YouTube

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Aditi Veena, better known as Ditty, a singer-songwriter from Sri Lanka, via New Delhi, sat down for an interview with Rolling Stone India for an issue out this month, where she discussed, among other topics, how she manages to juggle her burgeoning music career with her work as a conservation architect.

That’s where Charles Bukowski gets a name-check:

The singer-songwriter also cites poets such as German-American Charles Bukowski (a truck driver) and T.S.Eliot (a banker) as artists who had a day job at some point.

If you’re wondering when Bukowski was a truck driver, it is likely a reference to when he worked for the U.S. Post Office and, among other duties, drove a mail truck. He wasn’t a trucker in the traditional sense, as we typically mean it in the United States.

While Bukowski’s writing career really took off only after he was able to leave his job, on the strength of a deal with Black Sparrow publisher John Martin, he is a good example of a working class writer who didn’t let the fire go out even in the midst of shit jobs and equally bad luck (albeit much of it, to be fair, self-created).

"then something else in me said, no, save the tiniest
bit.
it needn’t be much, just a spark.
a spark can set a whole forest on
fire.
just a spark.
save it."

~ Charles Bukowski, from the poem "Spark" pic.twitter.com/sOwhDQhQOE

— Charles Bukowski Quotes (@bukowskiquoteus) May 20, 2019

Bukowski took an extended break from writing at one point in his life, before teaming up with Martin, but still created an impressive amount of writing during his working years, especially during his younger days. He upped his productivity level considerably once freed from the constraints of a straight job.

Finding time to create while also finding ways to pay the bills is an age old conundrum for the creative class. While the internet has made it easier to create and distribute work, it hasn’t helped the average artist’s bank account.

Artists like Bukowski and Ditty show it can be done, however, and as Bukowski said, “Nobody who could write worth a damn could ever write in peace.” If one has passion and drive enough, even through the chaos and while walking through the fire, one can continue to create.

“I love having several outlets to engage with, in life. I design natural buildings and gardens for people and take up a few projects at a time to be able to have enough time to do music,” Ditty told Rolling Stone.

Ditty’s debut album,  Poetry Ceylon, is out now from indie label Pagal Haina.

She has a lovely, lilting singing voice, which she breaks up with spoken word sections, spoken in a sweet and slightly raspy tone. Her lyrics explore love, loss, pain, separation, hope, and longing, and much of it could stand on their own on a page without musical accompaniment.

You can hear echoes of the Bukowski influence in lines like: “Sadness persists because your liberation comes at a cost/and that cost is the brewing and spewing of my mercy/I was meant to believe/Spasmodically/I was the one with the insanity/While you baked yourself silly/in the balcony/morning to blackness/Filled your bags with all your personal property/Disdained me nonchalantly,” from the song “Sadness.”

Listen on Spotify below.

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