"Summer of My Wasted Youth" / Amy Rigby

October 3rd, the Loft at City Winery, and I'm finally committing myself to an indoor show in a small space where no one is masked. Do I freak out? Well, for a few minutes, but once I'm there, it's easy to forget what year this is. I'm with my longtime crew of Kinky/Jiggy friends, I'm at my old City Winery stomping grounds (well, um, they moved during the pandemic so it's actually a new place, but they've still got the City Cab on tap and great flatbread pizzas).

My friends are here for the opening act, Rogers & Butler, and they do a bang-up job. Really good band, and great songwriting, although since we are sitting at the edge of the stage we can only hear bass and drums and no lyrics. Erp. Because I am actually here for the headliner, one of my top Girl Songwriters of all time, Amy Rigby. I put her right up there with Jill Sobule, Aimee Mann, and Jenny Lewis in my pantheon of chicks who do the feminist thing with wit and irony and a whole lotta snark. And, being a Lyrics Girl, I really want to hear Amy Rigby's lyrics.

But then she pulls out this old acoustic number, from her 1998 album Middlescence (you can also find it on the excellent 18 Again: An Anthology), and I am a puddle of emotion. 

Most of us have had a time like this, where even if you did have a job (or, as Amy puts it, a "j-o-b," as if it were something dirty and unmentionable), it was a dead-end job you didn't care about. When everything seemed possible and nothing seemed urgent; when your pleasure-to-obligation ratio was WAY skewed to the pleasure end of the equation. 

It's a brilliant title, playing off on that old-fart trope ("ah, my wasted youth" or "youth is wasted on the young") with the truth of the matter, which is that they were also wasted most of the time, dropping acid, smoking pot all day, drinking cheap beers at the Polish bar. Still, was it wasted time?  I beg to differ. She buys a guitar, though she hasn't yet learned to play it; she floods her brain with country music. Whatever music she'll eventually make is in there, gestating. 

A sense of loss haunts every line, the realization that the freedom and fun of the summer of '83 has since vanished. Listening the other night, I was especially hit by that one line, almost a throwaway line: "the summer I believed in us" -- you know from the past tense that she's no longer with that guy, and only now can she see how much disillusion and heartbreak was lying in wait for her in the fall of '83. 

Still, though you can't go back again (and would you really want to?), sometimes you can reconnect with who you used to be. Maybe it's because over the pandemic I went to my high school reunion and stirred up all those old memories; maybe it's because I'm zeroing in on the Medicare years and have a heightened sense of time passing. But this song flushes up so many feelings about one summer in Indianapolis -- not '83, but not much earlier -- and I realize I kinda miss the girl I was then.

Thank you, Amy Rigby, for giving her back to me.

R Is For . . .

26 artists, A to Z. And if Wreckless Eric can be our E, who else should be our R but his wife?

Amy Rigby /  "Invisible"

From 1998's Middlescence, the follow-up to Amy Rigby's brilliant solo debut Diary of a Mod Housewife (20 years old and still as fresh as a daisy -- for your anniversary vinyl copy go here )

Why do I keep coming back to Amy Rigby's songs? Because her snarky, punk-inflected brand of feminism is just right for me. She has a stand-up comic's irony and timing, a poet's ear for the apt phrase, and a social worker's sense of injustice.

Amy wrote this song when she was 39, and I understand that the big 4-0 would be a scary prospect for a chick singer in the male-dominated music industry,  But as someone well beyond 40 (as Amy herself is now), I know that this is more than just not hearing catcalls anymore when you walk past a construction site. It's a pervasive blankness, a negation of self. It strikes at the heart of how our society regards women. This is the reverse side of what Donald Trump's "locker-room talk" video exposed -- the fact that if you aren't hot enough to be grope-worthy, then you have no value and you really DO NOT EXIST for a sizeable proportion of the male population.

But -- hey, Amy Rigby chooses to keep things light. The tempo is bright, syncopated, the melody major key and upbeat. In verse 1 she's in a bar, surprised that no one's buying her drinks anymore. (Oh, poor dear.) In verse, she's on stage, dressed "like someone half my age." So far, self-deprecation reigns. But in verse 3, as she struts her stuff on the beach, the Creep Factor intrudes: he's only interested in her (presumably pre-pubescent) daughter. And as a mother, with Tiger Mother reflexes, her hackles rise.

And so, in the end, she slips in an oh-so-pointed rallying call: "I know it hurts to disappear / But you've got lots of company here / And we're invisible." So what if all the invisibles joined forces -- what could we accomplish?

Spurn one of those cat-calling guys and elect an invisible woman to the White House?

Well, why not?

Friday Shuffle

I'm thoroughly bummed that the Amazon widget doesn't seem to work anymore.  In cases like this I tend to assume that Blogger/Google and Amazon are having a hissy fit with each other (did Google steal Amazon's boyfriend?) and Google has decided not to play with Amazon ever again.  Took me ages to find another way to slip those links in here. Hope it works! 

1. Moments Like This / Maria Muldaur
From A Woman Alone With the Blues (2003)
Nice little bit of jazz from Maria Muldaur, in her best kittenish-sultry voice. I've been a fan of Maria's ever since the Jim Kweskin Jug Band days, though my favorite album of hers is definitely Waitress in a Donut Shop.  If all you know of her is "Midnight At The Oasis," please investigate further.

2. The Good Old Days / The Lodger
From Life Is Sweet (2008). 
Catchy indie pop number from this Leeds trio -- "Could it be the start of something? / Could it be the end of a phase? / Could it be the start of the future? / Could it be the good old days?"  Way too upbeat for the break-up subject matter, but I'll never turn down bouncy hooks like this.

3. One to One / Joe Jackson
From Beat Crazy (1980)
Joe Jackson may have started out wearing a New Wave suitcoat, but it never really fit. By the time of Beat Crazy he was already skewing toward jazz  -- we shouldn't have been so surprised by the next year's Jumpin' Jive, though who could have predicted the Latinized glory of Night and Day?  The metronomic drum tick of this track is downright hypnotic.  

4.  I Don't Wanna Talk About Love No More / Amy Rigby
From Little Fugitive (2005)
"I'm tired of emotional discussions / I'm tired of repercussions...."  Amy Rigby's such a hoot; she really tells it like it is, our most reliable guide to spunky chick desire.

5. Redneck Friend / Dave Alvin
From West of the West (2006)
Nice cover of a Jackson Browne tune, on Alvin's album-long salute to various of his fellow native California rockers.  Alvin's gravelly voice adds a sexy intimacy to this tune, perfectly complemented by a slouchy jazz arrangement. More people should cover Jackson Browne, IMHO.  

6. Rush Across the Road / Joe Jackson
From Rain (2008)
Joe again!  And 28 years after Beat Crazy, listen to his muse in full flower on this riveting album, one of the best of the past decade.  On the track before this, he rips our hearts out with "Solo (So Low)" -- only to let joy burst in again with "Rush Across the Road," a soaring paean to how love can take you completely by surprise.

7. Stick To Me / Graham Parker & the Rumour
From Stick To Me (1977)
Early GP, and great stuff -- dig those edgy rhythms and driving energy.  I swear, this song just crackles out of the speakers.    

8.  Hate to Say I Told You So / The Hives
From Veni Vidi Vicious (2000)
Well, talk about edgy rhythms and driving energy -- it's the Hives' turn, dialing up the punk with those grating guitars and pounding beat, sweetened with just a dollop of playfulness.    

9. Say Yes / Elliott Smith
From Either / Or (1997)
I know very little about Elliott Smith, but the handful of folky tracks that somehow landed on my iTunes always make me wistful. Was this song in the movie Garden State?  Sounds like it should have been.

10. You Are A Tourist  / Death Cab for Cutie
From Codes and Keys (2011)
"When there's a burning in your heart / An endless yearning in your heart..."  I love the layered textures of this track, with its incantatory chorus, spooling guitar riff, and plinging echoes.  Even endless radio play this summer couldn't spoil this number for me.

WEDNESDAY SHUFFLE

My son told me yesterday that when he hears me say I like someone's music, he automatically assumes it's someone English. Hmmm -- am I that transparent? Let's consult the shuffle and see...

1. "When It Sings" / Elvis Costello
From North (2003)
If I'd still been listening to Elvis Costello in 2003 -- which I wasn't -- I too might have been baffled by this tender album of jazz-drenched ballads. But finding it retrospectively, after Elvis' marriage to Diana Krall, it all made perfect sense. And doesn't Elvis live in Vancouver now? Does he still qualify as English?

2. "The Things We Never Said" / Thea Gilmore
From Rules for Jokers (2002)
Ha! Thea isn't English; she's from Scotland. A wonderful singer-songwriter, by the way.

3. "London Look" / Herman's Hermits
From The London Look EP (1968)
Not only a song by an English band, a song about London from an English band -- I am not doing so well here. What's worse, the Hermits did this song exclusively for a promo EP, sponsored by Yardley Cosmetics (remember the cologne Oh! De London? I wore nothing else for a year.) The basic idea is to stuff in as many London place names as possible. Who cares? It's a delightful, delicious little track.

4. "Nervous on the Road (But Could Not Stay Home)"/ Brinsley Schwarz
From Nervous on the Road (1972)
Despite the affected country drawl on this romping picaresque number about a touring musician, Nick Lowe is English, it's true.

5. "Don't Be Ashamed of Your Age" / Jerry Lee Lewis and George Jones
From Last Man Standing (2006)
Aha! Nobody's more American than that old rockbilly devil Jerry Lee and the king of country music George Jones. Normally I hate duet albums; this odds-defying LP is the exception to the rule. Listen to these two sly old dogs twiddling through this Bob Wills chestnut.

6. "Saint Beneath the Paint" / Nick Lowe
From Radio Daze (1984)
Not just one but two Englishmen -- the aforementioned Nick Lowe and his sometime colleague Paul Carrack, on particularly juicy bootleg live album. This obscure track from Nick's obscure LP The Abominable Showman (for that title alone he ought to be hung) is greatly improved with harmonies by Paul and a little boogie-woogie piano.

7. "Fool for a Lonesome Train" / Ben Harper & the Innocent Criminals
From Life Line (2007)
Another American -- whew! -- singing a trumpery bit of country blues. I still haven't quite figured out the riddle that is Ben Harper, but I keep on trying -- that voice can make any song sound better than it should.

8. "Rivers of Babylon" / The Melodians
From The Harder They Come (1972)
Do Jamaicans count as English (being former colonials) or American (being in the same hemisphere)? Like most American kids my age, Jimmy Cliff's Jamaican gangster movie was my introduction to reggae, and I played it so often, it's still hard-wired in my memory. "And let the words of my mouth / and the meditations of my mind / be acceptable in your sight" -- I still sing this song under my breath whenever I hear that blessing in church.

9. "Queen of Sheba" / Nick Lowe
From Nick the Knife (1982)
Not this one again! (Like I mind.)

10. "Knapsack" / Amy Rigby
From Diary of a Mod Housewife (1994)
Well, at least we're ending with an American -- not only an American, but a country punk female (talk about defying cliches). Fantasizing about the guy who checks her bags at the bookstore -- I picture the old Shakespeare and Company on the Upper West Side -- that's enough to fuel this Mod housewife's daydreams for week.

"20 Questions" / Amy Rigby

In my free time lately, I've been messing around making new iTunes playlists (must be the frustrated DJ in me). I did one last night that really came out well, titled By The Numbers. Each track has a different number in the title, all the way up to twenty -- and this wicked song by Amy Rigby is the finale to the whole thing.

I don't know about you, but my family was big on parlor games when I was growing up -- Charades, Categories, Botticelli, and of course the classic Twenty Questions. The object is to guess the person, place, or thing that the game-setter is thinking of, in twenty strategic questions or less. That's of course assuming that the game-setter is honest about what he is thinking of, which in my family was no sure thing.


Amy Rigby's not playing that same game -- she's just grilling her no-account husband as he staggers home drunk, late one night. But she plays by the rules, and if you're counting while she's singing -- and c'mon, you gotta count, that title just begs you to -- she does indeed ask exactly twenty questions of this no-good lout. She even helps you keep track, with phrases like "I've got seventeen more questions" and "I've got fourteen more questions...."

The thing is, she's pretty busy haranguing him for the first couple minutes -- I start to get anxious that she won't get through the entire twenty by the end of the song. But never fear: along about 2:00 she launches into a blizzard of angry questions, backing him up against the wall, each question like an accusing finger stabbing into his chest. The last seven are the true quicksand questions -- he'd better have good answers to things like "do you love me?" and "do you still love me?" and "did you ever love me?" Oh, he's in the deep shit now. Question #19 seems to switch mood, as she coyly asks, "What time do you have to get up in the morning?" But she follows that up with the ultimate zinger for #20 -- well, you'll have to listen for yourself.

Sure, this has a twangy country guitar, and Amy's singing with her best spitfire yodel. Her errant lover's wearing cowboy boots -- check! -- and then there's the theme of the cheating drunk husband, one of the classic country music story lines. But Amy Rigby's always put a punk spin on country music; you won't find sentimental pieties here, only snarky feminist attitude and trip-wire lyrics. The conversation is "dangling like a lightbulb swinging in some cheap motel"; her husband smells like "a perfume insert from a women's magazine." Talk about loaded images!

The album this comes from, Diary of a Mod Housewife, is absolutely jam-packed with waspish wit like this. I totally get how Amy Rigby should now be married to Wreckless Eric -- that's even more perfect than my girl crush Zooey Deschanel marrying Death Cab For Cutie's It Boy Ben Gibbard. (Though that one's kaput already...)

Unlike my Sirius-XM DJ hero Megless Griffin, I don't get off on the female singer-songwriters in general, the Lilith Fair girls with their guitars and their yearning emotions -- the Gillian Welches and Beth Ortons of this world. (DO NOT EVEN MENTION KATE BUSH TO ME.) I can see that they're talented and lovely; they just don't speak to me. But Amy Rigby? Oh, yes, this girl speaks to me.

"O'Hare" / Amy Rigby

Inexplicable. All these years, how did I never hear about Amy Rigby before now? She moved to New York City about the same time I did -- 1979 -- and was around all those same years, playing in bands like The Shams and the Last Roundup before going solo in 1996 (after divorcing her drummer husband) with the exquisitely titled album Diary of a Mod Housewife, an album that sounds scarily like my life. Of course, all those years she was hanging downtown with the cool punk music people while I was in Midtown with the not-so-cool publishing people -- and by 1996 I didn't even go south of 86th Street if I didn't have to. So it's safe to say that my paths and Amy Rigby's would very rarely have crossed in this great teeming metropolis. And as all the reviewers seem compelled to point out, she never got the exposure she deserved -- maybe because her ironic lyrics and country-tinged sound were too subtle for the punk world, and too punky for the Lilith Fair singer-songwriter girls. That Diary of a Mod Housewife is out-of-print by now; even the iTunes pickings are slim.

So how does she finally enter my consciousness? I start listening to Nick Lowe's old Stiff labelmate Wreckless Eric, am gobsmacked by how good he was, then discover that he's still performing and recording -- and has just released a new album with his new wife . . . Amy Rigby. The reviewers mention her like a name I should know, and I get to researching, and --

Eric and Amy's new album is intriguing, but it does sound more like Eric -- who's spent many years in the musical wilderness -- than like Amy's best work. Maybe it'll just take a few more listens for me to get into it. But I can safely say that Amy's earlier solo stuff has jumped straight to the head of my queue. It's like when I first discovered Jill Sobule or Kirsty MacColl -- like some sister had been reading my diary and writing it up in these great funny and absolutely true songs.

Surfing around, I've picked this one practically at random, from her 2003 album, Till the Wheels Fall Off. Strumming an acoustic guitar, she hits us right off with a real grabber of an image: "We've been circling each other like a couple planes at O'Hare / With nowhere to land." I love the wry curl of her voice, half talking, with just a little plangent country twang. You can almost hear her sigh as she notes, "And if we did, no place to go from there." That well-worn note of despair, that's no 17-year-old talking.

Next killer image, same verse: "And you're talking to me like you're handling the Dead Sea Scrolls" -- well, if you haven't faced that kind of clumsy male diffidence, more power to you, sister. She can barely restrain the eye-roll as she asks, "Do you think we're gonna figure this out before we both get old?" I mean, c'mon already!

In a master stroke of concise scene-setting, she slides into the bridge, "Tick tock they're closing for the night," and I can just see her, at that back table in the bar, sagging in weary frustration -- "I'm shell-shocked, giving up the fight." How many times has she gone through this rigamarole?

Rigby knows female desire, and she's not about to apologize for it, strutting into her twangy chorus. By now, she's lost the ladlylike acoustic and she's swinging into full roadhouse jangly electric guitar, with punchy loping drums, like the impatient tapping of her boot. "Come on, I need you to hold me," she urges him, drawing out the long o of "hold" with a little yelp. "What are you waiting for?" She has no time to waste or play fragile, you can tell, and she ruefully adds, "You can't break a heart that doesn't work no more / And I'm tired of trying like I did before." This is a woman with history -- what a novel concept! Frustrated, she moans, "I wanna lay down" -- another deft stroke, for laying down could be giving up, or it could be getting (at last!) into bed. Now there's songwriting for you.

"You can take off the kid gloves now, lose the finesse," she counsels him, knowingly, in the second verse. She's no ballbuster, but if he needs her to take control (and he clearly does), she will. "Yes, there's no secret technique in separating me from this dress." (Did I say she was funny or what?) Closing in on her evening's deal, she remarks, numbly surprised, "Something's moving in my chest" -- but no, "It's nothing, I just need some rest." She not about to get fooled into thinking that this bar hook-up is true love. Although it might turn out to be . . . well, you never know . . .

O'Hare sample