Hey Mama: Narratives in Women’s Music

 

 As some of you may know, I’m a women’s music-phile. I pretty much exclusively listen to music made by women. Now what exactly do I mean? Our pop culture consciousness  informs us that women on the radio sing high-pitched and delicate like Disney princesses and make pretty dance candy for our ears. (Read: Totally Not Serious Music…like the Beatles,  Bob Dylan, Elton John, Randy Newman, Eminem..etc PS: Try counting the women in that list! It is quite the task! With lots of men in between!) While I will more than likely write at a later date about how we perceive women’s music, here is A Polite Defense of Women’s Music by the fabulous Garland Grey at Tiger Beatdown that opens that conversation. (It’s great, I promise!) So, on to this business of narratives in women’s music! (Now with YouTube videos to inform and delight!)       

       

For purposes of clarification: I am not knocking pop music or making an argument that it is lesser than the artists I will use as examples. Not at all. Pop music has its own merits. Just be aware that “pop” is often where women are ghettoized in the music industry.       

When I, personally, evaluate music, I look at many factors: namely what I call the “who” factor. Who wrote the lyrics, the composition? Who is playing the instruments? The less hands there are in the cookie jar, the more likely I am to want to eat those baked goods. Especially in artists who mainly promote themselves as solo artists (i.e. Tori Amos, PJ Harvey, Joanna Newsom, etc), song writing/playing instruments/other intimate production details are very much part of these artists participation in the work they produce. Simply, their medium of expression is theirs, and no one else’s. That, to me, is music of the highest ranking.      

Narratives in music are slightly different then that of poetry and prose. The words of these narratives are still very essential to the work, but the tone, mood, style and what ultimately sets these narratives apart from each other is how the musician uses audio in tandem with the lyrics to tell a story. (I know, that is music, duh) Vocals alone can shift a song’s narrative, but instrumentation is essential as well (Also obvious, I know these are basics, bear with me). For example, check out Eminem’s number one hit single about Domestic Violence! (Wait, there are others? This is his marketing ploy? Well, check out the FIRST time he cashed in on this cow).      

(note the creepiness of the father/daughter pictures. I picked that one on PURPOSE)      

Now listen to Tori Amos cover that song! It’s suddenly not so palatable, is it?      

Same lyrics, two different stories! Exactly what I mean when I call a song a narrative. Women musicians write some pretty spectacular narratives, they tell stories in their music that have generally not been told in that medium before. It’s always very exciting for me to put on any PJ, Tori (what have you) album and know that I’m being told these stories that convey such a range of emotion, such cryptic depths of expression.      

Naturally, these narratives written by women usually (not always) tell stories of women’s lives and experiences. Falling into the category of experiences is motherhood! Usually, (place five tons of stress on that usually) these songs tend to be, well, like this:      

It’s really happy and sweet right? Which is great! Tori Amos talks a lot about how rewarding being a mother is for her. Sometimes, especially in the more pretentious circles of “people who listen to more obscure music” that gets mocked or derided, even if it’s just a rolling of the eyes or “She used to write such angst ridden music! Motherhood softened her! She sounds like A Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup Commercial!” Yeah, ignore that, whatever. I know a lot of moms who love the earth mother Tori, so obviously it resonates. Don’t knock it.      

Conversely, some mother narratives are somewhere along the lines of this:      

That is really creepy, mournful, obviously about a dead kid. Not happy! Also a story to be told. But very much the opposite of the other, one focuses on the joyful presence of the child while the other focuses on their absence. There are variations on a theme, but generally these are the two types I have encountered as narratives. (Sorry about the heavy-handedness of Tori and PJ, but their catalogues are what I know like the back of my hand. There are a zillion other just as great female artists out there. Share in the comments section, please!)      

I bring into this conversation obscure Swedish musician Jenny Wilson! I just discovered her this weekend! She is Swedish! She uses this crazy R&B sound! She has collaborated with weirdo-feminist-Swede-duo The Knife! In her new album (2009 in Europe, but the U.S. just got a release this August) Hardships! Wilson interogates motherhood in a way I have personally never heard before. For example, her single The Wooden Chair:     

In it, she sings: “I sit here singing a song/A song that’ll make you sleepy/Oh I sing a harsh hymn all through the night/So I won’t fall asleep/Oh oh lil baby in my arms/I am armed/I’m standing in the line of fire”
“My heart is beating/It goes boom boom boom/Both my feet/Wanna march right out of the room/It’s like a fever and I don’t feel fine/I wanna leave you baby/But our veins are entwined”     

That kind of turns the sweet maternal nostaglia we have for lullabies on its head, right? The narrator of the song is obviously so over caring for this child at the moment, but acknowledges that she has to perform this maternal duty. In the title song, Hardships, Wilson continues along this line of questioning motherhood: “If I’d returned from a fight/From a battlefield with some new scars on my face/And shot holes in my knees/If I was bloodstained and wild/If I held a trophy in my arms oh man/Not a newborn child/If I’d returned from a fight/Then people would have called me a hero”    

    This comparison is more than revealing: Wilson notes that she would be a hero if she was a war hero (something patriarchal culture prizes) but as a mother, not so much. To Wilson, motherhood is dirty thankless work that is devalued by our global culture. It’s not that she devalues motherhood, I think she certainly places that child in trophy status, but there is no rejoicing of her motherhood. What do we value more, death or life? The question is certainly an eye opening avenue to pursue. 

 In my Women’s Fiction class, one of our main focuses in our reading is take note of how women have to negotiate their roles as artists with their roles as mothers, wives, daughters and as women in general. What strikes me most about Jenny Wilson is that this negotiation is brutally present in this album. When is a mother compromised by her art, when is an artist compromised by her motherhood? Where do to the two conflict, and where do the two balance? Wilson explores these themes explicitly in Hardships! and there are no answers. It is almost as if she is saying, this is life, this is the way it is. The two will constantly have to be weighed, evaluated and compete against each other. It’s an exploration that I certainly find refreshing, new and courageous.   

In closing, enjoy the music! Share (as always) your ideas and your own selections of music in the comments section. Also, more Jenny Wilson!  

  

So I left my fading life /I left my house with an open door/Left it like an open sore/I couldn’t stop the wind oh blow/So I left my fading life /I left my house with an open door/I left like a fading rainbow  

Post Script: All lyrics were found here and here. And, coincidently and totally unintentionally, today is my Mama’s birthday. So please indulge me in helping wish her a happy birthday!