Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kathy Chitty (3rd nomination)

Kathy Chitty

AfDs for this article:

• Articles for deletion/Kathy Chitty
• Articles for deletion/Kathy Chitty (2nd nomination)
• Articles for deletion/Kathy Chitty (3rd nomination)

Kathy Chitty (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Was deleted in a previous AFD, but there was no quorum and closed by Cirt, so one user suggested it deserved another AFD. causa sui (talk) 05:08, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

• Merge and redirect to Paul Simon. WP:BLP1E. --causa sui (talk) 05:08, 22 July 2011 (UTC)
• Delete. Do not merge or redirect, since there are BLP issues. (Maybe a tiny merge of a small portion would be OK.) Regarding the BLP issues: "Kathy was quite shy and wanted no part of the success and fame that awaited Simon" and "Kathy is a very private person; all attempts by the press to cajole information or her whereabouts out of Simon have failed" are the operative factors here. Assuming these are true statements, then Chitty would probably be horrified at the existence of this article and we should treat this situation as if she had contacted the Wikipedia or the Foundation and requested the removal of the article. This is not a request the we will always honor (if the person is truly very notable) but it something that we do consider. The very most that could be said is the she just sneaks in below the lowest threshold of notability (I'd say not even that), so we should consider the WP:BLP cost versus the very low encyclopedia value.

OK then. Putting aside for now the serious BLP concerns, and turning to the merits of the case. I think that we do, and should, include articles for person who are artistic "muses" -- persons who inspired the works of notable artists. However, we want to be reasonable about this (especially as most of these people are essentially private persons) and I think reasonable criteria for inclusion would be:

1. The artist is a very important A-list artist, and
2. The person was truly an important inspiration for major works or otherwise a significant factor in the artitst's life or output.

It's hard for songwriters to be truly A-list artists for this purpose because songs are so short that it's difficult to develop deep and fully realized characters in them -- the kind of character (such as we might find in a novel or long poem or screenplay or (for that matter) a portrait) where we can recognize a person and the influence of their personality on the character.

I think an exception could be made for Bob Dylan and Lennon/McCartney because they are so very popular, influential, and (according to many critics) of high artistic merit. Steven Foster, Irving Berlin, maybe a very few others. Does Simon make this select company, either through notability or artistic merit? Maybe. It's debatable.

OK then, moving on, what about Chitty's influence on Simon? Are you kidding? There isn't any, not compared to real muses like (let's say) Virginia Eliza Clemm Poe or Gala or Zelda Fitzgerald or people like that. If I may take the liberty of copying in my comment from the previous recent AfD:

It's instructive in my opinion to compare this article to Barbara Bakhmetev. (Bakhmetev was Mikhail Lermontov's muse and inspiration, as Chitty is claimed to be Paul Simon's.) I translated Bakhmetev'a article, so I'm not averse to articles about literary muses. But in my opinion Barbara Bakhmetev is marginally notable -- notable enough to have an article, but not inarguably so. Chitty falls quite far below this standard.

I mean -- Lermontov anguished over Bakhmetev his whole life and not only wrote much poetry (and made paintings) about her but also based a major character in the seminal novel "A Hero of Our Time" on her as well as (in part) characters in other works. In contrast, Simon had a short affair (about 1.5 years) with Chitty such as young men have, moved on and married three other people, and wrote one song about her ("Kathy's Song") which was an album track and not a hit song, an acknowledge great artistic achievement, or otherwise notable.

He mentioned her briefly in three other (more important) songs, but only in passing.

• The reference in "America simply uses the name "Kathy" as a name -- the pair was never together in America and the events described could not have involved Chitty.
• Another song has the throwaway line "It was 1964. I was living in London with the girl from the summer before" which hardly bespeaks a profound influence.
• The reference in "Homeward Bound" (the refs are off-line so I'm taking on faith that statement that it's "widely believed that this song is also about Chitty", although off the top of my head I can't see why that would be so or who the "widely" in "widely believed" actually is) is slightly more developed, although the song is mainly about the touring rather than Chitty and the joys of home life.

It's not enough. It's not even close. I'm granting that the recent AfD (result was delete) did not have a quorum or a proper close, but can we put this one to bed now? Herostratus (talk) 06:09, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

• Keep. This page was deleted for the reasons stated by Herostratus above. I missed the 2nd nomination discussion and so have reinstated the article pretty much as it was when it was deleted. My reasoning for wanting to keep the article was that Kathy Chitty either inspired or is mentioned in a number of Paul Simon songs and consequently her involvement is worthy of note. Most of these songs have an article of their own so a large part of this article could be included in the individual song articles to put their inspiration into context. However, on balance it seems better to have a separate article regarding Ms Chitty rather than repeat the same wording in the different song articles.

This article had originally been longer but has been (quite properly) edited down to remove references to Kathy Chitty's later life, but those references indicated that Paul Simon considers Ms Chitty to have been important to his inspiration at the time. For example, at least twice at huge concerts Simon has mentioned from the stage that she was in the audience. These were not casual references to a passing acquantance but to someone he ackowledges to have been his muse at the time.

We must be very careful of BLP issues but I believe that the reference to the reason Ms Chitty broke off the relationship 45 years ago is acceptable. If others feel that is too intrusive then that is a separate argument but not one for deletion of the article.

Also, I think the views expressed during the discussion for the 1st nomination for deletion are still valid.

So a "keep" from me. It may well be close to the boundary, but definitely on the "keep" side.

If there are factual mistakes as Herostratus indicates, then these need to be corrected. Rickedmo (talk) 09:04, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

• Delete My ivote last time as WP:BLP1E. To be frank, I'm not sure even that covers the situation, and WP:NOTINHERITED comes closer. Ms Chitty was Paul Simon's girlfriend whilst he was in England. He was thinking about her when he wrote some of his songs (to which, I am tempted to add, so he should have been), he was attached to her (ditto), she was doubtless a source of comfort and encouragement. If he had married her and she had gone with him to the US it would still not make her notable in her own right without some much more significant and verifiable influence on the music. So the argument for keeping the material in the article is that it is relevant to the songs and to the biography of the artist. That I understand, and the same situation can arise with visual artists and novelists for example. No coverage of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood would be complete without Elizabeth Siddal, but her involvement with DG Rossetti was of an altogether different order. I still think that Ms Chitty should be mentioned in Wikipedia only insofar as it is directly relevant to the context, for example where it is verifiable that a reference in a song is to her, or the relationship had a direct impact on Paul Simon's mood at a relevant time, and not have her own biography. --AJHingston (talk) 10:27, 22 July 2011 (UTC)