The Horizontal Fall

Chris Robinson, frontman of the Black Crowes, tells Theo Von that he subscribes to a line from the French artist Jean Cocteau: "Living is a horizontal fall." He read it about 35 years ago and thought, "That's it." He doesn't fear death and never really thought about it much. The philosophy stuck because it captured something he already felt — that life is a slow descent, and the point isn't to fight it but to stay present in it.

The First Line Dictates Everything

Robinson started with poetry before music. As a kid in Atlanta, he was drawn to punk rock matinee shows in the early eighties, not MTV. That world required digging — finding other kids in Circle Jerks t-shirts, following a wavelength rather than a playlist. That human wavelength still exists, he says, even if devices have sidelined so many people.

When writing lyrics, the first line matters most. "If that first thing to me is something I could capture in imagination or feeling, where those two things come together in the first few words of the song — that's it." He cites Johnny Cash's "I hurt myself today" as an example. You don't wait until the third verse to deliver something good. You tickle the listener up front.

The Muse Is Jealous