"Junk" / Victoria Williams

Somehow this chick has totally escaped my radar up to now. I can't remember how I found this song (I suspect it was on someone else's iTunes playlist, as I was scouting out tunes for Hell Hath No Fury Week), but it has quietly begun to lodge itself on a high spot on my Rock Chicks playlist. 

So I toddle over her website and learn that Victoria Williams is very well connected -- she has been married in her time to both the Plimsouls' Peter Case and the Jayhawks' Mark Olson (Olson wrote the song "Miss Williams' Guitar" for her, not for Lucinda Williams) and she was ranked #89 on Paste Magazine's Top 100 Living Songwriters list -- not too shabby. Best of all, she hails originally from Shreveport, Louisiana, which makes it fitting that I should write about her on my friend Craig's birthday. (Happy birthday, Craig!)

You'll find this track on Williams' 2000 album Water to Drink. (Memo to self: buy this album NOW.) I love the lazy grit and sass of this song, not just in her voice but in those swampy guitar licks. In the middle, it wanders into downright psychedelic territory, and that Beatley mellotron loop at the end -- whoo-hee!

Yet the sneaky thinkg about this song is that it isn't storytelling, isn't a love letter -- it's a philosophical statement about temporal mutability. (Hunh? Come again?) "One man's junk is another man's jewel," she starts off in that froggy voice, and literal me, I start to think about recycling. (Love that second line: "Throw-outs may be polished into pearls.") She develops the idea in verse two: "One's man's junk is another man's project / Fixing up junk is a lifelong process." I must admit, I'm one of those this-thing-could-be-mended types myself.

And yes, the dreamy chorus at first sounds like this is a paean to eBay: "In the dreamy chorus -- "Wrap it up, / Send it off /  To a place where it's appreciated." How noble to give cast-offs a second life.

But note how, in the end of verse two, she describes this use-and-reuse as a human imperative: "Fixing up junk, that's what we're born to do -- junk!" She's not just talking about physical objects. In the bridge she shifts ground, singing about the metamorphosing relationships of people she knows: "Bonnie hung on to her darling, / Betty threw up and forgot him / Joey left his track full of Harleys." I suddenly re-hear verse one, see that "junk" means a discarded lover, who becomes a "jewel" to someone new -- someone who has learned how to fix up junk, perhaps.   

Learning how to let things go, how to redefine who we are and whom we love -- that's a life skill none of us have perfected yet.

It's an all-things-must-pass vision of life, which Williams sums up as "We share what was with each other / Pass around old molecules." These are downright trippy ideas, and the song mirrors that with its spacey musical effects.

By the second time she sings the chorus, she pushes that "wrap it up / send it off" concept a little farther, adding: "Trip to the moon / Wave goodbye / To yesterday's because and whys." Suddenly, all this recycling and passing around seems wonderfully liberating.    

Who knows how profound this song really is? All I know is that I'm flying on the phantasmagoric instrumentals, viscerally hooked on that funky beat.  Those crunchy discords, oh-so-slowly resolved -- I can't get enough of them.

One thing I do know:  I will never confuse Victoria Williams with Lucinda Williams again.

Changed the Locks / Lucinda Williams
HELL HATH NO FURY WEEK

Come on. From the very first mention of Hell Hath No Fury Week, you should've known Lucinda would be on the roster.

Unlike most of my favorite chick singers, Lucinda Williams isn't exactly someone I'd invite over to nosh Doritos and giggle over the Golden Globes telecast. She's more like the hard-bitten divorcee down the hall who bums cigarettes off you and asks you to lie to her biker boyfriend if he shows up unexpected. Still, if a man were doing you wrong, who would you ask for advice?  Not sympathy, mind you, but all-men-are-bastards advice?  You betcha.  

For all its world-weary slouch, this song isn't late Lucinda Williams; this tough-girl attitude is where she started out. From her third album, 1988's Lucinda Williams, this is her first track that got some airplay -- not much, granted, but some. In the 1980s, this gutsy hybrid of rock and country-blues wasn't necessarily mainstream taste. Even after Mary Chapin Carpenter's sweetened-up cover of "Passionate Kisses" won Lucinda some songwriting recognition, it would still be another 10 years (with Car Wheels on a Gravel Road) before the world was really ready to listen to Lucinda Williams.

From that opening snarl of guitar, you know she's pissed off and ready to do battle. The drums smack relentlessly, the guitarwork is dirty and a little raunchy sounding. She's way beyond pretty tunes, too -- each "verse" is simply a dogged chant, describing one radical change she's making to scour this man out of her life for good. Her voice is gruff, sarcastic, edged with a bitter yelp. Changing the locks is obvious, and so is switching her phone number.  But the more she goes on -- she's bought a new car, a new wardrobe -- you start to wonder: What did he do to make her so furious?

Normally people change the locks when someone's trying to hurt or harass them.  But is this guy threatening her physically? If she didn't change the locks, she declares, he'd come in and -- whoa, lie down on her couch.  If he could phone her up, he'd "say those things to me / That make me fall down on my knees."  Following her on the street, he might "knock me off my feet" or "call my name out loud." It's hardly what I'd call abuse. The real story, in fact, is that he's trying to woo her back. Romantic, right? Like Ryan Gosling trying to win back Rachel McAdam in The Notebook.  Yet that romantic movie ending is exactly what she doesn't want.

By the time she gets to the last two changes, she's hitting surreal extremes -- "I changed the tracks underneath the train / So you can't find me again," then "I changed the name of this town / So you can't follow me down." So what is she so afraid of?  So "you can't touch me like before, and you can't make me want you more." It isn't him she's afraid of; it's herself, and the self-destructive passion she feels for him.

That's a great twist, a sure sign of smart songwriting. But stop thinking this guy is Ryan Gosling, or Channing Tatum, or even (think 1988) Rob Lowe. He may turn her knees to jelly, but I'm betting he's still bad news, and now she knows it. Quivers of passion animate her vocals -- listen to that trembling uplift at the end of every lne -- but there's also a ragged edge of scorn to her voice.    

And if she can't resist his powerful charm -- well, then, she'd better change the locks, or the town name, or whatever.   

WEDNESDAY SHUFFLE

Wait, it's December already? Wait, it's Wednesday already?

1.  "Changed the Locks" / Lucinda Williams  
From Lucinda Williams (1998)
I think I'd like Lucinda Williams more if all you male music fans weren't always slobbering over her brassy-babe act.  Okay, yes, the rootsy squawk and drawl of this song is appealing, and yes, it should be satisfying to hear a sister wash that man right out of her hair.  It's just that I wouldn't trust her with my man for five seconds.   

2. "This Empty Place" / The Searchers
From It's the Searchers (1965)
British Invasion bands sure did like to cover Burt Bacharach-Hal David songs.  This was a hit for Cilla Black and Dionne Warwick, and the lyrics are really better for a girl singer -- borderline dopey Brill Building sentiments.  But that cha-cha beat is beguiling, and I love the octave swoops in the lead vocal (either Frank Allen or Chris Curtis, in the Searchers' revolving door of personnel). The Searchers never quite got their due, IMHO -- they never had a compelling enough image or a distinctive enough sound to compete in that very crowded field -- yet they turned out a surprising number of great tracks, and this is one of my faves.       

3. "One Bright Star" / Paul Weller
From 22 Dreams (2008)
A tango -- a tango! -- from the former Jam front man, whose music gets more eccentrically eclectic with every album. 

4. "Hollywood Bed" / The Blasters
From Testament: The Complete Blasters Collection (compilation)
Back to classic rock and roll sound, though the track dates only to 1981.  I came late to the Blasters, via Dave Alvin (Nick Lowe's Yep Roc label mate), who long ago played in this band with his brother Phil.  That revved-up tempo, the hectic joy of this song -- this was SO not the sound of the 80s for me, but I'm glad I eventually found it.

5. "Whistle for the Choir" / The Fratellis
From Costello Music (2007)
A charming little shuffle of a song by one of my favorite young BritIndie bands. Melody is alive and well and living in Scotland.

6. "Don't Let Me Down" / The Beatles
From Past Masters Vol. 2 (compilation)
1969, and we knew the Beatles were pretty much kaput --for the first time, John Lennon was taking full songwriting credit for a song. And -- ouch! -- he's singing to Yoko, "I'm in love for the first time / Don't you know it's gonna last / It's a love that last forever / It's a love that has no past."  Well, I knew what he was getting at, but I cringed for Cynthia's sake.  Am I the only one who hears a veiled threat in this song, shades of "Run For Your Life"?  Johnny, we hardly knew ye.... 

7. "My Blue Angels" / Jon Lindsay
From Escape from Plaza-Midwood (2010)
Hello, what have we here?  Yesterday's brand-new find. Honest, I didn't rig this; I am NOT being paid to promote this kid, I swear.  But seriously, you should check him out.

8. "Blank Expression" / The Specials
From The Specials (1980)
Aw, what a great album. It wasn't just ska, it was political ska with a low-fi punk edge.  I love how the voices are just slightly out of synch as they sing, "Where did you get that / [blank] Blank expression on your face?"  This lyric runs through my mind whenever I walk through hipster Williamsburg.

9. "Making Whoopie" / Ben Sidran
From Old Songs for the New Depression (2002)
Jazz -- because sometimes you've just got to.  Ben Sidran sneaks on here as an acolyte of the divine Mose Allison, who slipped onto my radar courtesy of Georgie Fame and Van Morrison.  It's just Ben and a piano, taking this silly old show tune through all its changes.  Dee-lish. 

10. "Beautiful Night" / Paul McCartney
From Flaming Pie (1997)
That searing solo John, and now some throwaway solo Paul. (Don't worry, I'll never switch allegiances.) Well, it is a beautiful night -- as Paul tells us (I've counted) thirty-nine times.  A charming simple little tune which Paul then runs into the ground for the last minute and a half.  Man oh man, this dude so needs me to help him edit his music . . . along with any other services I'd be happy to provide...

"Over Time" / Lucinda Williams

Now here's a real woman singing. It's not just because her voice isn't perfect (though it sure is distinctive, sliding into the pitch, carelessly enunciated, with a little strident quaver as she hits certain notes) . No, what Lucinda's got going for her is better than vocal perfection: It's that worse-for-wear weariness, that veteran shrug of resignation. Men don't fool her anymore, but she's learned to take the bad with the good -- 'cuz, really, what are your other options?

Amen, sister.

"Over Time" may be a "getting over you" song, but it's a version strictly for realists. For some reason I think of a back-porch screen door banging shut, and a woman flopping down in a hammock with a Mason jar of icetea to nurse her bruised-but-not-broken heart. Her guy's hit the road already, and this is how she exorcises the memory of his cute butt in those faded blue jeans.

The vibe here definitely defers to Lucinda's country roots, though this 2003 album World Without Tears embraces many other styles as well. The shuffling tempo isn't mournful or frantic, just a half-listless two-step; the western-style electric guitar twangs with a funny distorted shimmy; the drums slap along aimlessly. Williams' voice sounds flat and a little numb; the wound's still fresh, but she already knows that this too shall pass.

The chorus is a nugget of common beauty-parlor wisdom -- "Over time / That's what they all tell me / That's what they say to me / Over time" -- and maybe it's a cliche, but aren't cliches what real people cling to? She repeats this hope over and over, almost under her breath, while she studies her chipped toenail polish and waits for the medicine to kick in.

And then, as if stretching and shifting her weight in the hammock, in the verse she thinks wistfully back on her defected lover. She doesn't fool herself with any you-were-the-best-thing-I-ever-had stuff; her memory of him is totally down-to-earth, and so specific it doesn't even bother to rhyme: "Your pale skin / Your sexy crooked teeth / The trouble you'd get in / In your clumsy way." I love that little affectionate note that creeps in, almost against her will. Aw, hell, he was kinda hot, wasn't he? And I am so there, like a sympathetic neighbor stopping by with a casserole and a carton of cigarettes to show female solidarity.

Lucinda Williams may not hit every vocal note perfectly, but she hits the emotional notes just right. This is something guys don't always realize: Women know that all men are assholes -- and we love 'em anyway. Sometimes we love them because they are assholes. And hey, if we didn't, the human race would've died off a long time ago.

www.lucindawilliams.com