Liz Phair on All Songs Considered

OK, a shot at me (or at least, guys like me) was taken on the latest edition of All Songs Considered. In their team review of the new Liz Phair record, it was stated that most of her fans are horny guys who think that Exile in Guyville was a smutty love letter to them, and that they don’t get the irony.

Speaking as a male fan since the EIG days (it came out while I was in Egypt, but the Rolling Stone cover story about her was so intriguing, my brother mailed me a copy of it from New York City), this is nonsense.

For starters, the female commentator (I didn’t catch her name, but she’s apparently a disc jockey on Sirius Radio, on their Outlaw Country channel, of all things) can’t have gone to that many concerts. The two I’ve attended in Los Angeles have been mostly women and gay men, neither of whom, presumably, thought that Liz was trying to sex them up on EIG.

Secondly, you’d have to be a moron to not get that “Divorce Song” and “Fuck and Run,” two of the high points of the record, are somehow happy about sex and relationships. “Divorce Song” is a tough listen, as you’re hearing the apparent penultimate conversation of a relationship, and “Fuck and Run,” in addition to its other baggage, implies she was sexually molested at age 12. Maybe there are guys who would interpret this as love letters to them, but I doubt they’re listening to her — they’re more likely having creepy salacious thoughts about Radio Disney.

For me, though, Liz is the musical equivalent of one of my many female friends. While her life doesn’t exactly mirror the life of Kris or Kathy or Denise or any of the others, it’s got elements that I suspect are familiar to all of them. Her first album is about a girl in college and just after dropping out, singing about the single life. Her second, Whip-Smart, is about her post-collegiate life, centering around the single “Supernova,” which boasts of the sexual prowess of her new boyfriend (who is favorably compared to an F-15 jet in the sack) whom she eventually marries.

whitechocolatespaceegg, her next full album, is about the married Liz, her husband and her new child. But marriage is obviously not all roses, and she has multiple songs about how marriage is real work. “Love is Nothing” is short for “love is nothing like they say,” and “Go On Ahead” talks about a married couple doing things apart so that the marriage will stay together. It’s a shockingly personal album, for all that it is layered with wild metaphors and imagery and psychodelic soundscapes.

The divorce happened, and the self-titled Liz Phair was her next album. Its open move towards a more slick and commercial sound is much-discussed, but it’s really a pretty obvious progression from the slick-sounding whitechocolatespaceegg and even many songs on Whip-Smart. She wasn’t going to always record her music on four-track recorders, folks. The highlight of the album — which talks about being single in her 30s and trying to figure out what comes next in her life — is “Little Digger,” a wincingly personal song about her young son showing a new boyfriend his toy cars, but telling him “this one is my favorite/this one you can’t have/I got it from my dad.”

And the new album, Somebody’s Miracle, carries Liz forward to her late 30s. It comes out in early October.

For me, to listen to Liz Phair albums is like catching up with one of my female friends, bitching about husbands and boyfriends or trying to figure out what the hell they’re going to do with their lives. I don’t think Jessica or Sarah are coming onto me by doing this, it’s about just sharing what’s going on in their lives when we catch up with one another.

I’m looking forward to catching up with her again next month.

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