126. The Week in Me
A piece you haven't read before, from the vault!
I am resurrecting an old piece from my short-lived and dysphoria-filled singing career. I did a bit of press for my releases and surprise surprise, I enjoyed writing up my little interviews more than I enjoyed the actual singing. This was originally posted on FLEX Music Blog:
Five Songs I Love w/ Sweaty Lamarr
With the release of “Abbey, I’m Sorry I Stole Your Man” and ahead of her EP A Little Bit Cuntry, A Little Bit Rock & Roll premiering July 8th, songwriter Sweaty Lamarr (government name: Tara Giancaspro) names five songs that influenced her record.
1. Dead Man’s Bones - “Dead Man’s Bones”
Ryan Gosling needs to bring back his spooky ghoul band, expeditiously. This album is Hot Topic getting acquired by Anthropologie and delivering in full. Blue Valentine himself sat down, wrote a record that supernaturally compels you to both make out with someone dressed as a “slutty Arthurian Lady of the Lake” and then go home and sleep with the lights on - and then he just DIPPED to go have kids with Eva Mendes (can’t blame him) and make the new Greta Gerwig movie (I also can’t blame him; that movie is going to rip.) This album deeply influenced “Abbey, I’m Sorry I Stole Your Man,” from “My Body’s A Zombie For You” inspiring the very real chains I picked up at Home Depot for the bridge, to me telling my poor producer Sam “okay but the drums need to sound more like the intro to the title track” literally every day we worked on this song, sometimes twice. Sam, I am so sorry, but really it’s Ryan Gosling’s fault. Go yell at him.
2. Radiohead - “House of Cards”
Here’s an unexpected song that influenced A Little Bit Cuntry. I have been obsessed with this song since the day it was released. If you’re looking for a song to gloomily walk down the street in a long trench coat in the rain to, this is the one. It’s haunting and sonically complex, but feels so simple, and I wanted to capture this exact feeling with my song “Both Feet.” Also: I saw a t-shirt on Instagram that mocked up the Radiohead logo to read “Rodeohead,” and this is my reminder to buy it. Thanks, guys.
I think “Back then I swore I was gonna marry him someday/But I realized some bigger dreams of mine” is one of the greatest lyrics ever written, for how meta it is. You can hear her, even at this earlier stage of her career and just slightly moreso in Taylor’s Version, take an entirely deserved moment to celebrate her unspeakable achievements as an artist, and as someone who has inspired millions of young women and queer folks and even some suburban dads to be authentically themselves, to find their own value and assert it, even if they’re not yet in their destined place of acceptance and community. To be as annoying as they truly are without shame. (As a deeply annoying person and a Swiftie, I’m allowed to say this.)
Man, this song makes me want to grab a baseball bat and threaten my friend’s exes every time I hear it. Truly, my body has a feral reaction to this song and I just want to challenge a man, any man, to a fight. Gaslighter the album is a masterwork not only in that it drags Adrian Pasdar to the gates of hell while rhyming the whole way, but that when you listen to it you feel recklessly empowered to bark your story, leave your deadbeat boyfriend, and just maybe find some peace in your hurt. This album gave me, more than any other, my freedom as an artist. I listened and understood that I could go as specific as I wanted in telling my stories and people could relate, would relate, because betrayal and boat affairs are apparently universal. This album challenged me to be unafraid to all but name the people I wrote songs about because all of my exes are broke and can’t afford to sue me but are also just smart enough to not own up to leaving me with all of my radiant wit and giant cans. The story Natalie tells across this album, her story, is a marvel of a thing to witness, and I will never stop trying to make an album as good as this.
Also, Natalie Maines sits down for like this entire music video. As someone who works from home, the commitment to doing the absolute least is downright aspirational.
“Hunt You Down” ripped through me long before I ever knew I was going to make music, let alone a country-fried EP. This song is just so fun, this divine cocktail of sweet and tongue-in-cheek. I wanted to cover this on my record, but it’s bliss the way it is and I simply couldn’t find a take on the melody or Kesha’s delivery that could ever compare to the original. It, to me, is a perfect song and a tragedy of my life that I haven’t done it at karaoke. “Godzilla” on her album is devastating and I can’t recommend it enough. And of course “Woman” is a peerless empowerment banger. Gotta shout out the Dap-Kings, and may Sharon Jones rest in paradise.
To watch:
My friend and former voice teacher Chelsea Friedlander, dazzling as always. I think this is the most I’ve ever gotten to see her ACT through song and I was really impressed. So proud of her in this unexpected new chapter singing with the Army band!
Sent by
:
From Carey, who knows that Jonathan Bailey whose beautiful perfect face makes me GIGGLE:
To read:
wrote about the plasticene, purchased heart of Jingle All The Way::
“He Caught Taylor Swift's Broken Heel During Eras Tour Concert in Brazil. What Happened Next Changed His Family's Future.” Good on Christian Louboutin; this was very nice to read this holiday season.
To listen:
It’s always some real thought-provoking shit with
(and Trevor Noah):This is literally just Simone:
This is literally just Lugosi:
Actually my babies:
Various and sundry:
I could watch, but mostly LISTEN, to these videos all day:
”This sweet world” being my bed when my children are on it:
HELLO!!!
From Jason:
This Christmas, remember to do a big stretch before 1. beginning your feast of seven fishes and 2. debating about healthcare with your Republican relatives:
Love you jinglebitches,
TG
What does it mean if my cats sleep in every single one of those positions because they never fucking sit still?
Also, the "new Greta gerwig movie" reference in the interview a year before Barbie Summer 🤩