A lot has been written about how Liz Phair has sold out. She betrayed her fans, she lost her edge, she got famous and left her roots behind. She committed the lowest of rock ‘n’ roll sins: cleaned up her fuck-you-all image and reached her arms to the masses.
While I don’t feel that is exactly true, I’m not a fan of her these days. I think, frankly, she just got older, and yes, her music did change, and became an imitation of pop-mainstream instead of a shout from the sidelines at the big boys on center stage of the grunge era--and yes, she admitted to wanting more fans, after all, she had a son to raise and obscure fame doesn’t pay-- it then just got repetitive, uninspired and finally weird. I don’t fault her for changing over the years, but I mourn what feels like a loss of authenticity. I just can’t follow her anymore.
I came across Liz Phair, as so many did, shuffling through the array of northwest grunge rock, in 1993. I was fifteen years old, in the early years of grunge which brought the musical attention of the nation to my turf, the Pacific Northwest, and we still learned about music the old fashioned way: by going to hear it, by reading about it in magazines, by getting tapes from our friends, and by standing at the listening station at Tower Records. I was careful with my allowance; I didn’t want to waste my dollars on CDs I would only listen to once or twice. I wanted music I’d spin for hours in my Sony CD Walkman, lying in bed and imagining shapes in my popcorn ceiling, and after reading about Liz Phair’s debut album, Exile in Guyville, in a two-paragraph review with the photo of her album cover, all gaping mouth and hint of nipple in Rolling Stone magazine, I went to Tower Records and bought it having heard not one single track.
Everyone marvelled over the blow-job song, actually called “Flower,” in which Liz (I’ve known her for 17 years, I get to call her by her first name), in a deadpan, up-and-down voice, sings lyrics like, “Every time I see your face / I get all wet between my legs,” and “Everything you ever wanted / Everything you ever thought of / Is everything I’ll do to you / I’ll fuck you ‘til your dick is blue.” I almost always listened to Liz with headphones on so my mom wouldn’t hear the lyrics. I was the kind of kid who cared what Mom and Dad heard. This song is practically a capella, so you can’t hide in the music. It was provocative in its lyrics and approach, and I’ll admit that at 15 I was in awe of the sexual power she commanded, but it’s her willingness to be vulnerable and powerful at the same time that I kept with me. These days, when you can find sex all over the internet and get it on your phone, explicit lyrics have lost their power. They are standard. I read today that three of the top ten singles have titles you can’t print in a newspaper. I wonder if kids would be fazed at all by how raw her lyrics are, or if they would stop to marvel at the subtlety of her delivery.
Her song “Fuck and Run” was probably her biggest hit, if you could call it that, because while Liz Phair was referred to constantly as a no-holds barred, potty-mouthed blow-job queen in an indie rock scene dominated by shaggy, flannelled men, she wasn’t exactly topping the charts. I was probably the first person in my school to have her CD. Over the years I’ve been surprised that I’ve had to introduce her music to dozens of people; she’d escaped their radar.
“Fuck and Run” became an anthem for sexually liberated girls everywhere; girls who hit college and strived to have their way with men and leave them to cry in the dark. This is a radical misinterpretation of the lyrics. It is actually a sad song:
Whatever happened to a boyfriend?
The kind of guy who tries to win you over?
Whatever happened to a boyfriend?
The kind of guy who makes love ‘cause he’s in it and
I want a boyfriend
I want a boyfriend
I want all the stupid old shit
Like letters and sodas
Like letters and sodas
I understood that loneliness and need for connection before I understood much about actual sex or screwing around. At 15, 16 I’d had my first betrayal by a boy, I’d had a glimpse into what my peers were doing, and what it cost them. I yearned to be treated well, not just be treated. I wanted letters and sodas too. So many girls I knew caved to desires of boys for all the old reasons: they didn’t want them to leave, they wanted popularity, to be cool, or they wanted to but were crushed when boys moved on.
The song had a cool, snide veneer atop the vulnerability: “I woke up alarmed / I didn’t know where I was at first / Just that I woke up in your arms” which sounded to many like the aftermath of a carefree, drunken hookup, but not all listeners listened past that until the sing-along chorus: “Fuck and run / fuck and run / Even when I was seventeen / fuck and run / fuck and run / Even when I was twelve” which makes it sound like she’d been fucking around, having the time of her life, forever.
I always chose to take that last line metaphorically-- As a child of divorce, I knew early about holding my emotional cards close to my chest, and that’s how I interpreted this line-- she protected herself from being left, from pain by being the one who leaves.
The letters and sodas, and almost mumbled line, cloaked by a “stupid old shit” sentiment, is actually what she’s after-- something experiential and shared, that is too often elusive in a time when people use only sex to connect. Even so, there’s an ambiguity, an acknowledgment, of one’s own faults. The demo version of the song turns the tables and includes the lines “Whatever happened to a girlfriend / The kind of girl who tries to win you over”-- she admits that she sometimes, purposefully or not, is the one who disappoints, who leaves.
The song remains sad. I was haunted by Liz singing “I can feel it in my bones / I’m gonna spend my whole life alone.” It comes off as angsty now, but when I was at my loneliest in my teens and early 20s--alienated by callous boys, failed relationships, misinterpreted interactions-- that shared angst kept me going.
Liz went on to sing two more albums I liked, each more “produced” than the last; the authenticity really did seem to be gone. I couldn’t feel Liz in my gut anymore. It was like a dying friendship: you’ve outgrown one another, you see the end coming, but you don’t want to let her go. Eventually you stop trying.
Sex and relationships are tough to deal with-- so you have to be tough to survive them, but tough doesn’t have to mean being the one ahead. Everyone has room to stumble. After college, my experiential learning curve wasn’t as steep--I had more real relationships, and the Johnnys and Joes Liz Phair sang about that do you right or wrong faded from my iPod. I guess she had to change: like me, she grew up and couldn’t sing the same songs anymore. The shock value of her lyrics may have vanished as songs get increasingly vulgar, but the few times a year I do break out Exile in Guyville, I am still in awe of her authenticity. You can’t fake honesty. There is a thread, a feeling a knowing, that I glimpsed in her songs and recognized when I lived them, that are part of my history. She was with me in my early relationships, her cynicism and hope work alongside mine.
The song I find myself coming back again and again is “6’1”.” The lyrics are more general, but that’s okay, I can fill in the gaps now. Her seen-it-all perspective still shines bright after all these years:
It’s cold and rough
And I kept standing 6’1”
Instead of 5’2”
And I loved my life and I hated you
It’s a shout against fakery in a world full of cliched experience. The guitar thrum backing her voice makes it one of her most energetic, most uplifting songs. High school is like the demo version of who you want to be in the world, a place to learn about betrayal and honor, so you can hone your instincts and your manners for the reality ahead. This song had just enough me-against-the-world to satisfy my teenage self, lying in bed with headphones on, staring at the ceiling, but also enough get-on-with-your-life, stand tall, to remind me that ultimately, I’ve got to make it or break it, I’ve got to be the one who’s in it.
