Yo, This Thing

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You can’t invent us.

- Annie D.

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(Hey guys, this might go without saying, but as with all the best youtube videos, DON’T READ THE COMMENTS.)

For the next two weeks, we’re going to pay homage to the two songs I consider to be the holy grail of country pussycat music. Loretta Lynn has a good two dozen songs that may end up making appearances on Country Pussycat Wednesday; indeed, she could be the subject of this series all by herself. But this is the best-known of her feminist anthems, and had inarguably the furthest-reaching effect on the general public. (Lynn herself once claimed that rural physicians thanked her many times over for bringing the song into the world, as it prompted more women to inquire about birth control than any medical materials they distributed.) Given that an Oklahoma state representative recently voiced support for a bill requiring fathers to give their baby mamas abortion approval on the grounds that women are “hosts” once they’ve been “irresponsible”, this seemed the most timely of her songs to join us here this week.

Politics aside, this is traditional country storytelling at its finest: a full-circle past, present, and future narrative; triumph over adversity; and an often adorably flawless rhyming scheme (my favorite couplet is the match of “pill” with “deal”). The song’s female narrator, having delivered a baby a year for an unnamed and likely appalling amount of years, carries throughout the song a self-drawn metaphor of a chicken in a hen-house: her husband--who crows about how he and his “hens play”--has “set this chicken [his] last time” before she’s “done tore up her nest”, and in one of the most clever wordplays of the song, she squawks that she’s “tearin’ down your brooder house”, which a literal name for a chicken coop. The thought of a woman having babies so often that she feels like she’s popping out eggs as a job, ensconced in a filthy, noisy little shack, is as hilarious as it is heartbreaking.

The song, though recorded in 1972, was not released until 1975, presumably due to the inevitable controversy the record label knew it would generate. 1975 seems like yesterday given that half the world still seems to be attaching a stigma to birth control, but it was in fact 15 years after oral contraception had become available in the United States, though its accessibility was still limited in many populations. And here’s what gets me in my deepest pussygut about the fact that people did and still do attack Lynn for advocating birth control in a song: when it was released, Loretta Lynn was 43 and had already been a grandmother for nine years. She was married at 15, had four kids before her 20th birthday, welcomed two more in her 30s, and has buried two of them. Her husband, to whom she stayed married until his death in 1996, was reportedly a serial philanderer who once left her while she was pregnant, and who was also known to hit her during arguments. And people have the nerve to imply that this woman, who was a full-on child when she started carrying and caring for her own, should have kept welcoming as many babies as her husband could impregnate her with. I say to you: GOOD DAY, SIRS.

As much as this song has to say, the cheeky joy that we noted last week as a hallmark of feminist country music is still on full display here. It’s a song you can do a barnyard jig to right before you burn the barn down, which is 100% all I want out of life these days. But besides that joy being so in line with a solid country anthem, it plays a critical thematic role in this song, as it highlights the aspect of Lynn’s lyrics that I actually find to be the most provocative. Her heroine makes no bones (ahem) about the fact that the pill is freeing her up to have fun. She may be seeking relief from diapers and bottles, yes, but she’s also donning “miniskirts, hot pants, and a few little fancy thrills” to “[make] up for all those years”, because “the feeling good comes easy now/Since I’ve got the pill”. *This* was revolutionary in 1975, and it rather unbelievably remains so today, to the degree that birth control advocacy almost always has to default promoting to the medication’s practical and societal benefits, or even its byproducts, such as treatment for skin problems. Women taking the pill so they can enjoy sex? Still blasphemous. And yet condom advertisements look like they’ve been designed by the same people who decorated the Cruisin’ Chubbys strip club downtown.

As to the elephant in the room: yes, Loretta Lynn supported Donald Trump for president, saying she believed he would “turn the country around” (which...she’s been proven factually correct on this, no? She didn’t specify that he wouldn’t be turning it backward toward the gates of hell.) Perhaps we can hope that she was just appealing to the baser instincts of her fans and didn’t really mean this, but for the Loretta Lynn I know to pimp something she doesn’t believe is far worse than a one-off endorsement of a candidate early in his candidacy. Beyond that, all I can say is that Loretta Lynn of all people has earned the right to say whatever the hell she wants, and that this gift of a song had a far greater impact than any political endorsement she’s ever made. And that people are complicated.

- Annie D.

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Almost two years ago, I posted on this blog a Diana Trask song with the disclaimer that I was working on a long-form post concerning the history of feminism in country music. Given that...almost two years have passed without my completing that post, I’m going to redirect this instead to a song-a-week format to get these guys moving. I can no longer stand idly by as I hear people disparage country music as the jingoistic, chauvinistic, crapmusicistic genre that only its modern crossover branch represents when country music itself has been so formative in my development as a music lover, as a proud liberal patriot, and especially as a feminist. If female country artists are represented to you by Shania Twain and Taylor Swift, or even by Carrie Underwood and Miranda Lambert, then I have some (s)layers I’d like to introduce you to. You’re just not going to believe the stuff these women were singing about 50 years ago, right down the street from teenage Mitch McConnells and Lamar Alexanders, who were clearly scarred for life by their flaming radical singing wombs.

For the inaugural installation of Country Pussycat Wednesday, we welcome Billie Jo Spears, who released her first single, the spectacularly country music-titled “Too Old For Toys, Too Young For Boys” at the age of 13. As is still the case today, country music in the 60s and 70s was like the grade-school playground of music, with artists writing and trading songs to perform like baseball cards, and Billie Jo is arguably best known for being the first recording artist of a song that later became a massive crossover hit for somebody else (Jeannie Riley’s “Harper Valley PTA”). But Billie Jo was a terrific and prolific artist throughout her own life, and as she was married five times, had no children, and spent a good bit of her later career gallivanting around the UK once she realized she was getting better recognition there than in the US, it seems to me that her life was a pretty groovy one. Anyway.

“Mr. Walker It’s All Over” (1969) (aka the #1 song I was surprised never turned up on Mad Men) tells the sassy tale of a small-town Kansas girl who heads to New York with dreams of cities and secretarial work, and finds the reality to be dirtier [”I have to share the place with bugs and big ol' mice”], grabbier [”...that's a lot of hands a-reaching out/To grab the things that I consider mine”], and less dignified [”I fetch paper clips and coffee/Even help you dodge your domineering wife”] than she expected. Having decided through the course of the song that it is, of course, All Over, she puts in her notice, but how does she do it? She takes the letter of the law of her boss’s “sweetheart in personnel” and submits her required written resignation by SCRAWLING IT IN LIPSTICK ACROSS SAID SWEETHEART’S DESK. She also drops a gloriously cheeky (and, I have to believe, 100% intentional) double play on the phrase “wanted ad” in reference to her now-vacant position and her morally questionable boss, which, I mean, I dream of being this clever when I quit a job. Or even just when I write a song about it. (I do not write songs.)

Like all great country songs, though, it’s not only the lyrics that hammer home the point of this song. The mostly minorish chords underscore the story’s dry and sarcastic tone, and the key change that accompanies the secretary’s job walkoff imbues it with musical power and agency. Crucially, though, the whole song still feels playful and upbeat, despite its covering some potentially sad and shady ground. This is a credit to both the singing and the songwriting, but it’s also emblematic of the general swagger that pervades songs wherein female country artists sing about feminist themes, which we’ll delve into quite a bit on Country Pussycat Wednesday. Female country singers tend to get sad only when they’re telling us about loss. Where injustice is concerned, they right the wrong, sing about it wittily, and move on. They wallow only in death, never in life.

Mr. Walker’s former secretary, having had enough of the New York experience, heads home to Kansas and her mama, and makes up her mind to marry the boy next door, though “he don’t know it” yet. I guess it’s somewhat inevitable that the happy ending to this tale of wondrous female workforce power must be the promise of a marriage. And here is perhaps where we have to take into account that “Mr. Walker”, like “Harper Valley PTA”, was written by a man. But that’s a WHOLE OTHER post.

- Annie D.

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I miss the age of duets where people sang to each other.

- Annie D.

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Carrie Fisher essay on visit with Meg Ryan and others to Dildo, Newfoundland; photos (L)

Among her gajillion other accomplishments, Carrie Fisher used to write a travel column for the New York Times. It was, unsurprisingly, an utter delight. I think it’s worth nothing that her most frequent travel companion referenced in the column was Harper Simon, Paul Simon’s firstborn child. By the time Fisher was writing her travelogue, her relationship with Simon was probably 15 years fully over, and Harper was a young man on his own. Despite the turbulence of Paul and Carrie’s decade-long partnership, she obviously maintained a good relationship with his son, and helped him through his own drug problems when he was a teenager. That says as much to me about Carrie Fisher as anything else.

I can’t find a full listing of her NYTimes travel columns, but here’s a hilarious, exuberant, entirely representative sample. In it, she refers to Harper Simon, as she always did, as her stepson. The column is from 2005; she and Paul had divorced in 1984.

RIP, you badass princess.

- Annie D.

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This is one of my favorites off the Nick Lowe Christmas album, Quality Street, which is a fairly new discovery for me. It’s more of a toe tapper than you usually find in a religious Christmas tune and that is a-ok with me (even though it’s not the song on the album on which Nick Lowe bemoans not eating Christmas dinner “with my kith and kin”, an A+ lyric for Christmas and generally).

Also this video is like the world’s most advanced Jib Jab production.

- Annie D.

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Not a Tom Waits fan, you say? Focus not on the music but the humanity. My guess is you’ll start to come around.

- Annie D.

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I realize this is a strange choice for a morning-after song. My head is swimming with questions about the country I live in and the world I will inhabit for years to come. There are a million songs that could better encapsulate the confusion, rage, worry, and sadness I feel today.

But one thing I haven’t allowed myself to think too much about--no doubt for fear of completely breaking down--is my mother. My mother, the conundrum and iconoclast. My mother, who raised me as a single mother with no college degree. My mother, who agreed with Dan Quayle when he chastised Murphy Brown. My mother, who never voted for a Democrat in her life. My mother, who hated the Clintons more than perhaps any public figures in her lifetime.

Spurred by a conversation with the French kids I had a very small hand in raising many years ago, who were able to discuss politics with her on a level I have not allowed myself in years, she began to re-evaluate her positions. In the months that have followed, she has become my mother, who supported and donated to Hillary Clinton. My mother, who voted Democrat downticket in the crucial swing state of Ohio. My mother, who brought several family members around to her position. My mother, who grew to love and admire Hillary Clinton. My mother, who became inspired to begin volunteer work at an inner-city school. My mother, who began saying “feminist” with pride rather than disdain. My mother, who gleefully texted me to recap John Oliver every week. My mother, who told me how enlightening this election has been in terms of where she gets her information. My mother, who said she realized that the morals of the people she thought spoke for her had long ago gotten away from her own. My mother, at almost 67 years old, disclaiming her lifelong party affiliation. My mother, whom I have always loved and respected, becoming my grown-up buddy, sounding board, and political confidante.

My mother is a white middle-class woman, but I feel like America let her down last night as much as just about anybody. I feel as terrible about this as I could for any little girl I might be raising. And at the heart of it, today I do feel very alone, and today I do want my mom.

- Annie D.

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Devastating lyrics; lush strings and romantic backing vocals. Heartbreak songs dressed up like love songs is a genre I wholly support.

- Annie D.

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Raise your hand if you want to hear Tim Kaine play this on the harmonica. (My hand is...wavering, for what it’s worth.)

- Annie D.

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There’s no way I ever heard this song as a child, but you’d have a hard time convincing my nostalgia control center of this. How could this not have been the song playing some summer afternoon in the den, breeze coming through the windows, Uncle Joe milling about in cutoff jean shorts and a bandana, maybe drinking a Hudy Light, my toddler feet skimming over the rust-colored shag carpet?

I’ve been waiting a few years to get my hands on this record, and it’s just super.

- Annie D.

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I am forever here for your Depression-esque songs of all genres. (Look at that cover. Johnny is about to go INTO THE MINE.) Additionally, I feel that this use of “busted” carries a bit more nuance than the 21st-century version we’re used to.

- Annie D.

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So many of my favorite things: Sammi Smith, the state of Kentucky, slightly gothic minor chords, and proper-name wordplay.

- Annie D.

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Anton Newcombe wishes he could sound this dirty in the morning.

- Annie D.

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In dramaturgy school (DROP), an entire semester is devoted to the art of adaptation: in theater, obviously, but also in many other art forms, as well as interdisciplinary adaptation. Naturally, my close-knit, music-loving cohort seized this class as an opportunity to turn the discussion to the art of musical adaptation, and assigned ourselves the duty of producing individual mixes of cover songs. That I spent multiple classes expounding on the structural framework of an a capella version of Toxic or why an R&D take on Hey Jude adds a layer of social context to the original is as clear an explanation as any of why I am a relatively happy person instead of a rich one.

I’ve been spending a lot of time with Gladys Knight lately. She’s massively underrated, I feel, not because she’s unknown or undervalued, but just because the amount of 21st-century attention she seems to get relative to her Motown peers is out of proportion to how crazy good she is. And Gladys Knight is a master of musical adaptation. I’m one among many I know who prefers her Grapevine to Marvin Gaye’s better-known version (thanks, Raisins), though her Midnight Train to Georgia is, I think, well-established as the definitive take on the song.

But her Once in My Life is fairly new to me, and it’s impressive how much I like it given that the Stevie Wonder version (which I thought he wrote!) is one of my all-time favorite songs. The reason I have so much room in my heart for Knight’s take is the reason behind any successful adaptation: it’s a perspective, not a copy. Where Wonder’s is upbeat, Knight’s is languid. Where Wonder’s is joyous, Knight’s is romantic. Chirpy vs. sensual, spring promenade vs. winter fireside. 1968 civic energy vs. 1974 wide-legged lounging? Interestingly, the Knight version is much closer to the way the song was originally envisioned, as a ballad, and closer to the way almost every other artist recorded it as well (the Temptations, Tony Bennett, Jack Soo). Despite protests by Berry Gordy, Stevie Wonder was original adapter of this song, taking it far away from its origins, and to tremendous success. So this wonderful song is a true success story for adapters across the board, a shining example of how the same song can provoke very strong, very different emotions when encased in capable artistic vision. Game, set, match for dramaturgy YET AGAIN, guys.

- Annie D.

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Is there a better song in all the world? There might not be.

- Annie D.