Cornerboy radio in modern Ireland

A few years ago, when the Irish Times was still asking me to review the odd book for its books page, I was taken aback to find myself described, at the end of a review, as "a journalist and critic".

Belonging to the school of thought that regards "critic" as a term of abuse, I admit that I flinched. The words "critique" and "criticism" derive from the Greek words "krinein" and "krisis", which, though I don't speak Greek, I understand to signify the action of unpacking ideas. To criticise, in this context, means simply to take hold of something and look at it. The negative connotation of "criticism" derives from the corruption of a process essential to the intellectual life of a society or an individual. It is easy to see why. Or at least it is easy if you have ever put something of yourself into the public domain and had it savaged by critics. I don't mean ideas per se: in truth, once you become used to the cut-and-thrust of public debate, your sensitivities become calloused, so that no amount of abuse has any real effect on your soul. But other forms of writing are entirely different, and in my experience the fact that those who contribute to the artistic life of the nation are at the mercy of those hardened in the battle of the public square is sometime a recipe for great damage, brutalisation and, in the end, censorship.

People can say pretty much anything they like about an article of mine without me feeling anything other than strong disagreement. I might respond vigorously, but the intensity of this would rarely, if ever, reflect any personal feelings of hurt. My experience as a playwright is entirely different. To write a play, or no doubt a novel or poem, is to do more than put an idea out there to be "taken hold of" or "looked at". In effect, you place a hunk of your soul in a public place, and then stand by while people say what they think of it. This is why I no longer review plays or novels: I know what's it's like and why it's so different form having someone disagree with the thesis of an article or a non-fiction book.

Music is in the same category. I might "criticise" a band, in the sense of "looking at" its social significance, but I would never nowadays do a hatchet job on the music of a band or a musician. It's too raw, too personal, too painful, and I know what that can feel like. A newspaper article comes from the head (usually anyway, though I know some columnists who write with other parts of their anatomy); a song comes from the heart.

I have no difficulty in admitting that, when Joe Duffy insisted on reading out the lyrics of two songs I'd entered for the Eurosong contest on Liveline last week, and lined up a couple of cornerboys to slag them off, I found it both hurtful and confusing. Not having been exposed in this way for some time, I'd forgotten what it's like to have some part of yourself filleted in public by someone who, because he has never risked anything of himself, has the cruelty of the spectator at a bullfight. This is why so much of what passes for art criticism in our cultures is so destructive and useless, and also why artists, musicians and "real" writers tend to hate journalists of every description.

I find myself interested in my own confusion. It is possible to meet an argument head-on, take it apart and whack it back across the net, but you can't dissect a sneer and send it back where it came from. And a song lyric is even more difficult to defend than a play, a novel or a poem, because, stripped of its context, it isn't even what you created. Without its melody, backing, arrangement and phrasing, a lyric is a naked thing, utterly devoid of its emotional content and context. There is something ludicrous about being present while it happens to you: all you can do is wait until it's over. Nothing you say can do anything but make things worse. Unless it's 'On Raglan Road', song lyrics are, quite literally, indefensible.

The "point" of reading out the lyrics, I surmise, was to exploit the apparent incongruity of a journalist writing a song. I don't believe Duffy is either ignorant or courageous enough to do the same thing to Jimmy McCarthy or Sinead O'Connor, but he probably reckoned he could get away with it here. His unspoken argument was: "this guy is in the business of giving stick, so he has to take it on the chin". His spoken argument was, "You have to admit that people are going to be surprised that John Waters has written a song". This theme was obligingly picked up by a couple of callers, one of whom delivered herself of the immortal line, "He should stick to writin' in the paper!"

I had naïvely imagined that, with all the talk about multiculturalism and so forth, we'd got a little beyond this kind of smalltown cultural policing. But if you're looking for a taste of Tipperary in the 1930s, Liveline, it seems, is for you. The whole thing, of course, was a transparent strategy to squeeze as much voyeurism as possible out of the item without embarrassing RTÉ in its corporate incarnation. The point of my being on the show was to talk about the way RTÉ had – metaphorically if not literally – binned more than a thousand songs entered in the Eurosong contest. Duffy's objective, quite clearly, was to deflect attention from this topic and turn the heat on me. Duffy would probably have gotten away with it had it not been for Brush Shiels, who managed not merely to refocus the discussion onto RTÉ and its corporate ethics but also to defend my indefensible lyrics. I was surprised at how much it rattled me, and in my surprise reminded of why most of our public discussion about culture and so forth has the effect of driving those of a creative bent back into their shells. It explains in part why artists and "real" writers make so little contribution to public debate. I can't say I blame them.