Portions for Foxes: Kate Miller-Heidke

"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 think I'm behind on this week's performer's career. She's talented and quirky and from the opposite side of the world from me - Australia - and despite how global we're all supposedly these days, some things travel farther than others, for no reasons I can articulate.

So I have a ten-year old song from her, and I bet she's done a bunch of things since then that I would love as well. I may have to do some digging, and see what else is out there.

But, right now, for today, I have Jimmy, a 2014 song from Kate Miller-Heidke, an opera-trained singer/songwriter/bandleader from Queensland.

It's about that one friend you have who's kind of a jerk but, somehow, you stay friends. In this song, his name is Jimmy.

I said "Jimmy, don't embarrass me
I don't want a display
Everybody's staring, see
I'm just not in the mood today,"

But Jimmy is a force unto himself and just isn't having that. I'd quote the refrain, but - like a lot of music - it doesn't make much sense as flat words on a page. It all depends on hearing it, hearing the chugging, surging music, and feeling it in the moment.

OK, maybe I do need to say it: Jimmy has a soul full of guns.

I don't know what that means. I don't even know if it means anything: if it's an actual Aussie expression, or random slang Miller-Heidke and her friends picked up for a while or what. But it's striking and specific and absolutely fits this character.

The Jimmies of this world will always be with us. And, sometimes, they're worth it. This is a song about that.