A Weblog by One Humble Bookman on Topics of Interest to Discerning Readers, Including (Though Not Limited To) Science Fiction, Books, Random Thoughts, Fanciful Family Anecdotes, Publishing, Science Fiction, The Mating Habits of Extinct Waterfowl, The Secret Arts of Marketing, Other Books, Various Attempts at Humor, The Wonders of New Jersey, the Tedious Minutiae of a Boring Life, Science Fiction, No Accounting (For Taste), And Other Weighty Matters.
Andrew Wheeler was Senior Editor of the Science Fiction Book Club and then moved into marketing. He currently works for Thomson Reuters as Manager, Content Marketing, focused on SaaS products to legal professionals. He was a judge for the 2005 World Fantasy Awards and the 2008 Eisner Awards. He also reviewed a book a day multiple times. He lives with The Wife and two mostly tame children (Thing One, born 1998; and Thing Two, born 2000) in suburban New Jersey. He has been known to drive a minivan, and nearly all of his writings are best read in a tone of bemused sarcasm. Antick Musings’s manifesto is here. All opinions expressed here are entirely those of Andrew Wheeler, and no one else. There are many Andrew Wheelers in the world; this may not be the one you expect.
"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.
This series isn't all obscurities. I'm not deliberately being a hipster or anything. And I'm ending the year, and the series, with a song I bet anyone reading this already knows. (And likes, I hope: though tastes always do differ.)
To end the Portions For Foxes series, I'm turning to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and throwing the knob all the way to Zero, a great song from 2009 and their It's Blitz! record.
I can't tell you why this song sounds so positive and energizing when the lyrics are so dark:
You're a zero What's your name? No one's gonna ask you Better find out where they want you to go
It's not mocking. It's not even "they call you a zero; are you gonna stand for that?" It's pure and straightforward - maybe we should take it as starting from zero, from the base, with nothing behind you and nothing expected.
There's a whole new year ahead of all of us, full of whatever. It starts from zero. Go for it.
"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 don't have enough happy love songs in this series, so, as the year's closing out, let me get one more in.
Well, it's mostly happy. No lives are completely happy, so there's some worries seeping in around the edges. But this is a song about making the most of right now, about being in love with someone you know well, about finding your joy where and when you have it.
It's C'mon Catherine by Shannon Worrell, from the 2008 record The Honey Guide.
It's another one of those songs obscure enough that I can't find lyrics online, so anything below is from my listening and typing and rewinding - possibly wrong, but, I hope, well-meant.
C'mon Catherine Let's bossa nova in the afternoon Winter will be here too soon
There's repeated mentions of ending, which might be just the general "end" - not of this relationship, or anything else major like that. Just that life is short, and enjoying it is what we have to do now.
Driving 220 in the snow Listening to the radio Made me promise not to see that other girl again
But maybe not - the singer is hearing "a September song." This might be a song about love about to be lost after all, for all my optimism. But, even if it is, even if something is time-limited and fragile, it can be beautiful and true and wonderful while it lasts. That's what this song says. And it has a fine fiddle behind Worrell's lovely expressive voice to do it, and a sound like a hills ballad you've been hearing all your life.
Growing grapefruit Lemons and tiny tangerines This is the most a life can mean On the terrace in the sun We ate every single one That was another year I swore I'd never leave
In this season, I hope you all have things in your own life that make you feel that way, that this is the most a life can mean.
"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.
As we get into the cold time of the year, here's something appropriate: a song of sadness and lost love and broken promises, about how everything gets worse, more complicated and more difficult as you get older, written by a great songwriter and sung by a great singer.
They're both the same person: Tracey Thorn. The song is unironically titled Oh, the Divorces! and it's from a record called Love and Its Opposite, which is mostly about the opposite.
It starts like this:
Who's next? Who's next? Always the ones the ones that you least expect They seem so strong It turned out she wanted more all along
The singer is not the one divorcing, which is unusual for a song like this. She's watching, seeing her social circle change and break - and there's an undertone of "how can I know I won't be next?"
Oh, I know we shouldn't take sides But that one was his fault This one is her fault No one gets off without paying the ride And oh, the divorces!
It's a quiet song, the kind of quiet that's all-encompassing and devastating. It's just Thorn's voice, close and confiding, over piano at first and then some light strings later, like you're listening in on her internal thoughts.
And it's a deeply adult song, in a way that feels rare: a song talking about a stage of life and a worry that's just not part of normal pop music. You have to walk down a lot of road to get to a song like Oh, the Divorces! That's one of the things I love about it.
"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.
This week the song is Medicine, a great rousing tune by Alex Winston, off her great 2012 record King Con, which is full of great music top-to-bottom and should be much better known than it is. (Looks like she finally had a second record earlier this year: I'll have to check it out.)
Yes, I used "great" three times in one sentence. It's allowed when it's true.
I get a feminist, don't-push-me-around vibe from a bunch of Winston's songs - mostly wrapped up in great tunes and metaphors and quirky ideas - and this is definitely one of them:
I won't take my medicine I won't settle my debts, no Sell your house Sell your kids Don't settle for less no uh oh
This one has a happy, positive vibe - a handclappy slow syncopated rhythm with light instrumentation for the verses, a bigger punchy sound swelling up for the chorus. It feels like a traveling song, like Winston and her band are skipping down the lane somewhere, calling out to the locals and dragging a swelling crowd of revelers behind them.
I don't know what it means; the words get tangled and obscure in the verses. But it's crisp and precise and I have a strong feeling Winston knows exactly what she means, what she wants, and where she's going. And that's enough for the song, and for me.
"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.
It's another obscure one this week, a song I loved but know essentially nothing about the singer and band. But that's the way of the world, isn't it? There are billions of people, living their lives and doing things - some of them make art, some of that art is breathtaking, but only a subset of even the breathtaking stuff will stick with a larger audience. Not to be a Pollyanna, but it's a vast ocean of wonders.
Anyway, the song this week is C'mon Baby Say Bang Bang, a quiet smoky tune sung in an undertone, from a band called Jane Vain and the Dark Matter. According to a quick Wikipedia check, they're supposedly still active, but haven't had a new record since 2010. And the band was, or maybe still is, mostly one person: Jaime Fooks, originally from Calgary but residing in Montreal the last time someone updated the page.
It's a dark song, full of elusive lyrics, with a late-night sound.
let’s stay up all night and figure whose guns are bigger you can put yours right between my eyes honey if you promise to pull the trigger
It's all a metaphor, of course. She's not singing about a real gun. Absolutely. Not a chance. Entirely about shallow party people trying to one-up each other with their clever remarks. Nothing else.
"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.
When does a gimmick start being just the way this band operates? Or is there really any difference?
Tilly and the Wall was a band with a gimmick: their rhythm section was a tap-dancer, Jamie Pressnall. (They eventually got a drummer, too, but Pressnall was still a major piece of the band's sound, giving a rat-a-tat, staccato rhythm to a lot of their best songs.)
They had a decent career for a decade or more, including this song, which I loved when it came out on their 2008 record O and still love now: Pot Kettle Black.
It is a snarky, mean song, calling out an unnamed person in a very catty way - whoever they're singing about clearly had an acid tongue:
Pot kettle, pot kettle black Talk that, talk that smack
This is not a song with a deep meaning. You don't need to explicate it. It's Lyin' Ass Bitch - slightly slower, different rhythm, same energy - for a new generation. (And now I feel old, because both of those generations are solidly in the past.)
But it's stompy and it's gnarly and it's a hell of a lot of fun, with that great rat-a-tat rhythm that's like no other band's songs. And that's what great music is all about: songs that are purely themselves, giving you something you don't find anywhere else.
"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.
You know how sometimes, your favorite song by a band is different from everyone else's in the world, but you just don't care?
That's where I am today.
My favorite Throwing Muses song is the obscure Sinkhole, and I just don't care who knows it. I find myself running the chorus in my head randomly, a decade-plus after I first heard it.
This is the version from the In a Doghouse rarities collection; I think it was originally a cassette release back in the '90s.
And it's the story of a sinkhole, as the title implies. It's being narrated in a florid, hyper-religious way by someone - I suspect a nut of some description - and sung in an exaggerated drawl at speed over a loose, jangling arrangement.
It's sundown in the sinkhole, It's sunrise up on the hill. The thieves are sleeping in Hades' palm, And they're keeping very still. It's summer in Winterhaven, And the earth, she's caving in. There's no water on the land, And it's all because of sin.
I don't take it seriously. I don't think singer/bandleader/songwriter Kristin Hersh ever took it seriously. It's a kinda silly song. But it's got a vibe, and a propulsive energy, and it's the best damn song about a sinkhole ever written. I will die on that "hill."
"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.
This week, something fun and zippy and happy for a change: Red Light Love by Those Darlins, a country-tinged rock song from 2009 that was later used in a car commercial.
There's some winking going on here, and each listener gets to decide for herself just how far this particular Red Light Love is going.
Red light love Makes my heart stop Drives me so crazy I can’t even walk
On the surface, it's just about driving around aimlessly, having fun with someone you love and not being worried about anything in the world.
We don’t worry about getting lost because he knows his way around
Singer Jessi Zazu sings that with a smirk and a subtle emphasis at the end, just in case you thought this song was entirely serious and straightforward.
This is a purely happy, peppy song that makes you want to jump into a car and drive away aimlessly with that special someone to make some Red Light Love of your own. Go for it.
"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.
This week: a quirky-sounding song of unrequited longing - something new and different!
OK, so I do have a clear style of music I like. So sue me.
This one is Red Mittens, from the Portland (Oregon) band Swansea, off their 2017 record Flaws. It's a semi-electronic dive into what feels like high school drama, as the singer stares and and sings to this one guy that she'd never actually say any of these things to in person. I say "sings," but it's mostly spoken, except for the refrain and a few other moments.
It's another song obscure enough that I can't find lyrics online, so anything later is my transcription, and errors entirely my fault.
I want to tell you I love Frannie and Zoey I want to tell you I'm making a skirt out of neckties I want to tell you I love....your...nose But all I do is sit way back in the bleachers And watch your body And I'm away from you by rows and rows
It's all on that level - specific, grounded, trivial-sounding. It's full of telling details of this one girl watching this one guy, who we're pretty sure has no idea, and never saying or doing anything about it.
Yeah yeah...yeah yeah
Take it as an object lesson of what not to do, or take it in remembrance of when you were also young and callow. (Which might be thirty years ago or yesterday, depending.)
"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.
One of the great tricks across all media is the tonal mismatch - the chipper fairy-tale tone telling stories of woe and despair, the bright smash-cut movie all about ennui. Done right, it throws the material into higher contrast - sometimes with irony, sometimes a blunt honesty.
This song does something very similar, with a tinkling, cheery opening and mostly conversational tone, as Laura Stevenson (and her backing band the Cans) talk directly to some specific listener, telling what I picture as a girl of ten or so that she needs to be brave and strong for her family.
The song is The Healthy One. That's who Stevenson is singing to. And the title gives away the story, just a bit - if there's only one "Healthy One," what does that mean for the others?
Stevenson doesn't say, exactly. We don't know the timeframe. She implies she may not be singing about today. But the repeated chorus at the end gives us a hint, as the music swells and she belts it out:
And you will live long You will bury them all in the ground And your body will grow You will bury them all
This is a song from 2011. I don't think it had a vogue nine years later - it was too much on the nose for right then. But more time has passed, those of us left are living long. I guess we're the healthy ones, for what it's worth.
"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.
Another song of romantic conflict - this time out, it's Honey I'm Not Him by Ellen Starski, from her 2018 record When the Peonies Played for the Ants.
It's one of those great songs, in one clear voice, spoken to another person - the wife talking to the other woman, what seems to be late one night, out in the darkness.
Hey I heard you've been hangin' round my home girl you better find another man to adore the stars shine brightly on my pistol and this whiskey sure tastes fine
I love the directness of it, with that quiet country "Cheatin' Banjo" (from the album's credits) behind her voice.
And the title - the whole chorus it's part of - is just perfect:
Find yourself a lily white church And ask forgiveness from your sin I'm sure God will forgive you But Honey I'm not Him
Cheating songs are legion, but "I know you're cheating, and it's time to stop" songs less so - this one takes over that territory for itself and does a brilliant job of it. The country/folky sound is just perfect for the material, as is Starski's quiet, slightly affected singing tone here.
"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 posted this song here once, ten years ago, and said it felt like "the fight song for that high school on the bad side of town you do not want to mess with." (And that video, I see, is now a broken link.)
This week it's time for Infinity Guitars by Sleigh Bells, another punky, loud, guitar-driven (how could it be otherwise, with that title?) song from those days of the early 21st century.
The lyrics are obscure and vaguely ominous. The guitars are loud and jagged - with a perfect burst of pure noise right at the two-minute mark of this short song.
straight wars straight men cowboys indians red souls red friends infinity guitars
What does any of that mean? Conflict, I think - any particular kind of conflict, I don't know. Maybe just in general. Maybe all the conflict you can take. Maybe every conflict ever.
But, at its core, it's a song that brilliantly answers the question behind a lot of rock music. How many guitars do you need? Infinity Guitars. And away it goes.
"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.
You know this song. You knew what it was when you saw the post title.
(Well, maybe not - if you're substantially younger than me, maybe you've never heard it. If so, you are one of today's lucky ten thousand.)
If the band is Romeo Void, the song can only be Never Say Never.
Oh, they had other good songs. A Girl In Trouble. Myself to Myself - and so on. But Never Say Never is a force. If I had to name the hundred best singles ever, it would be on that list. Maybe even if I had to cut it down to the top twenty.
I put the video below, but that's a single edit. For the full experience, you really need the album version.
I might like you better If we slept together But there's somethin' In your eyes that says Maybe that's never Never say never
The song has two powerhouses, over a pounding rhythm section, tight drumming and pulsing bass: first is the half-spoken, languid, almost dismissive lyrics from Debora Iyall, always in control, always on the edge of a sneer - the kind of rock & roll voice we heard a million times from men but rarely with this intensity, this purity, from a woman.
The other powerhouse is Benjamin Bossi's saxophone - this is a punky song and an '80s song, so it's a single instrument rather than the blast of brass you get in other kinds of music. The punk comes out as Bossi circles pure noise during parts of the verses, the '80s sax centrality is most obvious in his big mid-song solo and the bap-bap-bap riff that opens several of the verses and becomes a central motif of the song.
This is a song that punches, a song with places to get to, a song that will roll right over you if you get in its way. It is one of the greats.
"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.
A lot of the music in this series is from the years around 2010 - maybe 3-5 years to each side - when apparently I was paying a lot more attention to new music, or the ecosystem (new-music notifications in iTunes and elsewhere, a pre-streaming emphasis on buying songs, a robust network of blogs to highlight new stuff, and so on) was closer to the ways I like to discover new music.
I don't know if it's an failing-ecosystem thing or a you-can-only-chase-fame-so-long thing, but a lot of those artists seem to have quietly dropped out to do other things since then, and this is one example.
My song this week is Everything to Lose by Bess Rogers, who had a bunch of music - great music; I dithered between about four of her songs for this series - for about a decade, including this Travel Back EP in 2009, but seems to have gone quiet since 2016.
It's got a great shuffling, handclap-y beat to start off, with a first verse of Rogers' voice just over that percussion before the rest of the music kicks in for the chorus:
why so down baby? why so glum honey? if the only thing you want is money then you've got everything to lose
I guess you could call it a message song, but it's one of those messages everyone agrees with - if you only care about money, you're gonna miss out on a lot. But we don't always come to music for unique or profound thought - we don't come to music for that most of the time. We come to music to tell us things we know but might have forgotten, and do it with a punch.
Rogers has a lovely, flexible voice and it serves this song well - it's a fast song, and a moderately loud one, but she's never straining, never pushing. It just all flows out - boom boom boom. Three minutes, in and out: says what it needs to, like any great pop song. And this is one.
"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.
Some songs are more "message-y" than others; some are really specific and direct. This is one of those.
My song for this week is Amy Ray's Put It Out for Good, the lead song from her 2005 record Prom. (I've never heard the rest of that album; I got a sampler of her music around 2012 with this song on it and bought a couple of other things - like so many artists in this series, I am a pure dilettante here, just saying "I really love this one song," and not claiming any deep knowledge or expertise.)
It's a song about growing up an outsider, a nonconformer - someone who doesn't fit into the boxes of what's expected.
All the punks and the queers and the freaks and the smokers Feel like they’ll be waiting for the rest of their lives
This is very clearly in a high school context - some big dance or pep rally at the school, all spirit and togetherness and tradition and how-it's-always-been. And the singer wants to do things, but not the way they're telling her to.
Alright I hear what you’re saying to me Alright I hear what I just can’t do But I got this spark I got to feed it something Or put it out for good
For so many of the songs I love, I'm deeply ambivalent about what they're saying - I'm attracted to songs about mixed love and loathing, about sadness and depression, about unhealthy emotions (because those are the big fun ones!). But this song is just true - clean and tight and ringing like a bell. It's been out in the world for twenty years now, and I hope has been randomly heard to help and support however many punks and queers and freaks and smokers needed to hear it, needed to know that there is a place for them, and that there's plenty that will feed their sparks, that nothing ever needs to put it out.
"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've said before I'm no expert here - I'm highlighting songs I like a lot, not things I'm deeply knowledgeable about. Here's another example: I think this singer has had a serious career almost entirely in places I have very little visibility. But this one song popped out, and it's quick and punchy and loud and awesome.
This week, my song is No Me Vas A Callar, a 2007 single by the Mexican singer/songwriterElis Paprika.
It is mostly in Spanish, so I'm not going to quote it much. (I found this lyrics site with a translation, but make no promises about its accuracy.)
The one thing I absolutely do know is what the title means: you are not going to shut me up.
The lyrics, from what I can tell, are mostly repeating that: this is a song that wants to say one thing, and to say it loud and clear.
And it does that brilliantly, with a keening guitar line under the singer's just slightly harsh singing tone - she's serious, and committed, and she is going to say this so that no one will misunderstand.
"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.
Here's another obscure one, another song that spoke to me really strongly at the time and that holds up all these years later. I don't know what else this singer/songwriter did - I have this one 2008 EP, and nothing else by her.
(One quick Google later: she's still out there, making both music and paintings. I'm so happy to see that.)
This week, the song I want to champion is Happy by Marykate O'Neil.
The title is ironic.
I used to have dreams to accomplish great things Now all I wanna be is happy I used to dig deep, never get any sleep Now all I wanna be is happy
The lyrics could be sarcastic, with a different presentation. (It was co-written by Jill Sobule and Fountains of Wayne's Adam Schlesinger, two people who know sarcastic well.) But it doesn't come across that way at all: it's stark and honest, from the point of view of a person who used to have dreams and hopes and goals...and lost all that, for reasons she won't or can't say.
All I wanna be is happy is the repeated line - basically every other line, the whole song. It comes across as a plea, the singer running through all the things she's changed, all the ways her life has contracted. It doesn't come across as saying she is happy now- just that's all that matters now, the only thing she can still aim for.
You can take that as a lesson, however you want. And decide how much you want to be - or can be - happy, yourself.
"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.
"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've posted about this song before. I had a moment of wondering "am I allowed to do that?" but then remembered: it's my blog; there are no rules.
(I also posted, some years back, about another song by the same singer, Time Machine. That's less relevant, but, hey, I like to link.)
This week's song is The Chain by Ingrid Michaelson. As is pretty usual for me, it's another song about heartbreak, betrayal, and love gone wrong.
There's been a breakup, a bad one, and the singer is talking to the one who's gone away:
So glide away on soapy heels And promise not to promise anymore And if you come around again Then I will take the chain from off the door
I always catch on that "promise not to promise anymore." Does it mean "don't lie to me again"? Does it mean "next time, it has to just be casual"? Does it mean "I'll take you back as long as you don't say anything stupid and ruin it"? Or all of those and more, all mixed together?
I'll never say that I'll never love, Oh, but I don't say a lot of things, And you my love are gone
I think of this song as more definitively "this is over" in my head than the song actually says. The title is explicitly referencing "if you come back, I'll let you." It's not quite a "please come back" song, but it's close.
What I love the most about this song I can't quote - towards the end, Michaelson does that refrain as a round, multi-tracking her voice, and going round and round it again and again, overlapping, as the music swells behind them - behind the "them" that is all her, all the individual voices that are all one person - and then it crashes and and it's just her voices, dropping out one by one as they hit the end of the refrain until it's just that one single voice ending it.
It's one of those perfect musical moments that comes around every so often, doing that paradigmatic thing - the soft LOUD soft transition that works so well in music when done right - and Michaelson just kills it. It is glorious and almost makes me ignore just how ambivalent the song is overall.
"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 didn't plan this - it's another artifact of alphabetization, the same thing that's happened a couple of times before this year - but I'm coming from Ida Maria's 2008 poppy, happy sex song I Like You So Much Better When You're Naked last week to a sadder, quieter song about sex from Shannon McArdle, from the same year.
This week, it's the Summer of the Whore.
It's a break-up song - doubly so, since McArdle's marriage to a bandmate broke up at the same time as her former band The Mendoza Line did the previous year. At this remove, I don't know how those break-ups happened, and it doesn't much matter - call them simultaneous, call them inevitable, call them anything you want.
This song is the title track of an album all about those break-ups: a quiet, sad record of loss and need and emptiness, about suddenly finding a vast hole in the middle of your life and having to fill it up.
Summer of the Whore, the song, is about one way to fill that - the singer is telling it to someone, talking through how she feels, and how she plans to spend the next little while.
All this heat and this fever has me wanting so much more This season is the summer of the whore
And explaining why she's doing this right now.
All these months since he left me has emptied me out to the core To fill me up must declare it the summer of the whore
But this isn't her new normal. She's clear about what this is, and how long it will last, already looking towards when this will end and she'll be able to move on.
But this offer is over when I've settled up the score If I were you I'd get in on the summer of the whore
The music is quiet, almost ominous, almost droning - no great leaps up or down, just staying on the same level for nearly four minutes. Giving that feeling of waiting, of a moment in time, of something paused that will change, entirely, inevitably, very soon.
I love the way this song drains "whore" of almost all its power, through that quietness, that droning, that repetition. It's not even the usual feminist "reclaiming" - McArdle doesn't really want to make it a positive. She just has a song about a mood, a moment, a season - what it feels like to be left behind and want to do some sowing of wild oats before she moves on in turn. It is what it is. This is where the singer is right now: the summer of the whore. Take it or leave it.
