Portions for Foxes: Stephie Coplan and the Pedestrians

"Portions for Foxes" is a series of weekly posts, each about one song by a woman or a band led by a woman. See the introduction for more.

I sometimes wonder if I'm digging up half-forgotten or completely-abandoned careers with this series of posts - the bulk of the songs I'm writing about are from ten to fifteen years ago (when I was either paying more attention to popular music or popular music was clicking with me more strongly; take your pick), and that's long enough for all the members of a band to completely hate each other and solo artists to have run through two or three entirely unrelated careers afterward.

But the whole point of art is that it's there. It doesn't depend on the artist any more, once it's out in the world. I don't want to go full death-of-the-artist, but released work has an escape velocity; it goes on to its own life.

My song for this week was part of a burst of creativity from one woman and her band - she had a series called "Yes, I'm Really Writing A Song A Week" back in 2013 - and, like every burst of creativity, it eventually ended. But it happened, and there's a fun cluster of songs from it.

The band is Stephie Coplan and the Pedestrians. The song is, if I have the orthography right, JERK!

It's yet another "this person is so wrong for me" song, more angry than despairing, more loud than lamenting, and it rocks out so much.

But what's fun about it is how visceral it is. Coplan doesn't get into body parts, but this is very much a song about a guy that's fun to fuck, but no good for the narrator in any other way.

Make it count, make it loud, make it real, make it sick, make it good
Let it scream, let it roll, let it roar, let it hurt like it should
Sh-sh-shake it like a soda with a pop top ready to explode
Come on, baby, keep it coming 'til you toss me like a gum wrapper stuck on the road

The voice isn't totally happy with this - who would be? - but there's an attraction she can't deny, even as the song is set in that post-coital disgust for the whole thing.

Coulda been your eyes
Coulda been your smile
Coulda been your I-don't-give-a-fuck style
Coulda been your anger
Your jaded middle finger
But you're the jerk who just keeps turning me on

A song like this could easily turn into "how could I do something so stupid," but Coplan keeps the focus on the Jerk. He's horrible in a sexy way, and the whole song is charging headlong into that twisted cluster of emotion, that core moment of doing something you know you'll regret - that you're already regretting as you do it - but the moment is so compelling that you just do it.