Before I ever heard Liz Phair, I heard about Liz Phair. The Midwestern indie-rock gossip train had made the trip from Chicago, her hometown, to the Minneapolis record store where I worked in high school weeks before an advance copy of her 1993 debut, Exile in Guyville, did. Listening to the men I worked alongside pick apart this woman none of them knew – whom they called an amateur and a slut because she’d written a song called “Fuck and Run” and reportedly appeared topless on her album cover – taught me a crucial early lesson: The boys who run this scene will hate your ambition either way, so you might as well just do whatever you want.
It’s hard to overstate what Guyville meant at the time. Today, echoes of its direct, finessed feminist interiority can be heard in similar work by young artists like Mitski, Soccer Mommy, St. Vincent, Snail Mail and others. In 1993, she was at the vanguard. A double album debut was audacious; her clear-eyed and candid presentation of sexuality and gendered experience of the music scene even more so. Musically, its versatility showed Phair as an auteur with the vision and chops to back up her ambitions. The album was finessed and dynamic from start to finish, from the single “Never Said,” a wry anti-kiss-‘n’-tell anthem with a soaring, multi-tracked harmonic “I,” to the more subtle but no less complex “Stratford-on-Guy,” where Phair sings about flying over Chicago, imagining a cinematic upgrade of her life – pretending she’s in a Galaxie 500 video. The subject matter was certainly striking, but the bigger deal was a double album of flawless songcraft. — Jessica Hopper, Rolling Stone 2018
.
‘6'1”’ (1993)
.
Phair was pissed off, stoned, obsessive-compulsive, crushing on an unattainable rocker, and underemployed: a perfectly warped creative storm. "I had tons of dream time," she says, and began an intense relationship with Exile on Main Street. "I would really pretend that all the answers to all my questions were in Mick's lyrics and this record, and I would dream I was having this conversation." In 1993, her own 18-song disc Exile in Guyville arrived, touted as a "track-by-track response" to the Stones' double LP.
[…]
So “6’1″ ” equates to “Rocks Off.”
In his lyrics he’s coming back from a night out, he’s doing the walk of shame. It’s early morning, and he runs into someone who he’s obviously had a relationship with. She’s up in the morning because she’s up in the morning like a normal person, and he’s coming home, probably still drugged and delirious — this is what I glean from the lyrics — and she’s giving him the uh huh, you’re obviously sleeping with someone and it isn’t me look, and he’s like, look man, I can’t even get into it because I’m kind of tripping out, I only get the rocks off in the morning — that’s how far gone he is. So I play the part of the woman he runs into on the street, and I’m going like, “Oh yeah, and I hated you, I bet you’ve fallen…” On other songs I would be in agreement instead of arguing with Mick, where I’d be like, yes, I too have seen a rock & roll hero who’s sort of a bum and I think he’s really tragic and beautiful — “Glory.” — Caryn Ganz interview, Rolling Stone 2010
.
‘Never Said’ (1993)
.
What about “Tumbling Dice” matching up with “Never Said”?
Oh, that was a big one, I remember thinking the most important song happens at the fifth song. Because in my mind “Tumbling Dice” is the big radio hit. I was like, I need to do the big radio hit there, which is funny because “Never Said” ended up being the radio hit off that record for me, and I don’t think Matador would have gone with that just because I said so. I think that was the natural song to play on the radio and make the video for. “Never Said” was one of those times where I was showing I could be just as unaccountable. — Caryn Ganz interview, Rolling Stone 2010
.
‘Johnny Sunshine’ (1993)
.
This was [the counterpart to] the Rolling Stones’ “All Down the Line” in my saga. They’ve just been in their disagreement moment and now the guy is checking out and hitting the road. He’s going back out on tour. I liken “Johnny Sunshine” to investing all this stuff in this relationship and then you’re just taking off. It’s that feeling of abandonment that you feel when you’re like, “Fine! Go! I don’t care.” Then, of course, you break into the truth of it, which is that she’s devastated. — Liz Phair, Rolling Stone 2010
.
‘Stratford-On-Guy’ (1993)
.
Not a day goes by that someone doesn't tell me that they booked 27D on their airplane seat specifically to have that experience [laughs]. It's amazing. [...]
They felt like they were the arbiters of cool and "Stratford-on-Guy" is me waking up as I travel out of there and just getting out of that neighborhood and it all falls off of you. It all just falls away. There is this sense that you're literally at 30,000 feet above the scene that you are so involved in and this relationship you're so involved in and it's just a literal perspective shift above it. A lot of the bullshit just falls away. — Liz Phair, Rolling Stone 2010
WHO’S TALKING TO WHO?
Jimmy Kimmel: Lionel Richie, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Chesca featuring De La Ghetto and Offset
Jimmy Fallon: Michelle Obama, Guy Raz, Edie Brickell & New Bohemians
Stephen Colbert: Sen. Chuck Schumer, Jared Leto, LANCO
Seth Meyers: Sarah Silverman, Nico Hiraga
James Corden: Benedict Cumberbatch, Justin Bieber
SPOILER WARNING
A late night gathering for non serious palaver that does not speak of that night’s show. Posting a spoiler will get you brollywhacked. You don’t want that to happen to you. It's a fate worse than a fate worse than death.
.
The Rolling Stones ‘Rocks Off’ (1972)
.
Slim Harpo ‘Shake Your Hips’ (1965)
.
LAST WEEK'S POLL: LOONEY TUNES: FIRST GENERATION
Beans the Cat 0% 0 votes
Bugs Bunny 63% 10 votes
Daffy Duck 19% 3 votes
Elmer Fudd 13% 2 votes
Porky Pig 6% 1 vote
Bugs in a landslide!
P.S. Liz Phair has a book out.