Sonic Youth-Tunic
i’m writing this story about anorexics for the local daily, and have been listening to this song as a way towards thearpy, except its not really working…see the thing is that all of what i believe about anorexia is in this song, and also things im not quite sure of. The idea of it being about control is here, in how kim gordan (playing karen carpenter) has to move her voice into and out of the guitar scrawl…and how she isnt nesc. loud enough. Or about how the world wants women to be smaller, because smaller is easier to control, easier to leave behind—and how that you lose her voice in this, how the guitar is considered so phallic, and how it presents in a really agressive fashion, with an agressiveness that is abusive towards the female voice. Then there is the idea of a perfect world, wanting to please family, wanting to be happy, and only being happy when you lose that last ten pounds–but the irony there, the irony that the only way to mantain that happiness is to do so in heaven–the idea of the afterlife as perfect jam session (cf Dolly Partons Hillybilly Heaven). The last closeness is the obession with food, the liturgical naming of Carpenters actual food. The problem with the track is how happy some of it is, how freeing–around the 4 minute mark there being a fuck you to Richard, about how she has to go because of a gig–a gig away from the boys, away from fame, a self directed happy just being us girls, taking over the reigns, noisy, messy, guitary gig that collpases the rest of the song into almost farce.
(note: where are the pop songs about this sort of thing, where are the carp;enmter songs about love being a withering wasting–did the girl groups even do it ?)