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Denise Matthews\u2014aka Vanity\u2014died this week, at the age of fifty-seven. In memoriam, we\u2019re sharing this \u201906 exchange from the late, lamented Moistworks, the music blog founded by James Morris and more or less edited by Alex Abramovich. Read Part 1\u00a0here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n From: Emily Barton The Bessie Smith version of \u201cNeed Some Sugar in My Bowl<\/a>\u201d\u00a0is unbelievable. \u201cI need a little hot dog in my\u00a0roll\u201d? And the whole gruff command bit at the end? How sublime and\u00a0ridiculous; thanks for attaching it. You\u2019re quite right that the emotional\u00a0valence of \u201cNasty Girl\u201d\u00a0and \u201cSugar in My Bowl\u201d couldn\u2019t be more different;\u00a0though I would argue that across Nina Simone\u2019s work, whenever she talks\u00a0about something \u201cdown in my soul\u201d she means her hoo-hoo.<\/p>\n Thanks for the Wolk sections on James Brown, as well; they do shed some\u00a0light on the \u201cI\u2019m down on my knees \/ I\u2019m begging you please \/ I say please\u201d bit of \u201cNasty Girl.\u201d Somehow I hadn\u2019t managed to connect the \u201cdown on my\u00a0knees\u201d of begging (whether with histrionic or masochistic intent) with the\u00a0\u201cdown on my knees\u201d of fellatio, which Vanity\u2019s no doubt referencing. (This\u00a0would, after all, be one culturally sanctioned way of proving she\u2019s a nasty\u00a0girl.) In both senses that\u2019s a nice tie-in to the Prince as (Weird Genius Ambisexual) pimp scenario you mention, and to the question of whether this is ultimately a song about power. I think it is, and actually a pretty smart one, in that it doesn\u2019t assert either of the easy sides of the argument (i.e., either the gazer or she who holds the gaze being empowered) but ricochets between them, which may be why there\u2019s that infinite regression in who\u2019s imagining what in the song\u2019s set up. What kind of power is it, after all, to be asked to front a band not because of any intrinsic desire or even talent, but because you look the way you do? A certain kind, to be sure.<\/p>\n I\u2019m thinking about that other Vanity 6 song \u201cDrive Me Wild,\u201d\u2014musically it\u2019s pretty far inferior to \u201cNasty Girl,\u201d and it was written and performed by Susan Moonsie, not by Vanity herself, but I think its subject is relevant. The song\u2019s premise is that the singer compares herself to all manner of spanky-new inanimate objects to prove she can please whoever she\u2019s talking to. So for example, one verse runs:<\/p>\n Ooh, look at me, I\u2019m a Cadillac (I very much like that \u201cchild,\u201d which you can read either as that Susan is a brand new convertible-child\u2014a scary notion\u2014or in the \u201cOooh, CHILD\u201d sense.)\u00a0<\/p>\n Another verse:<\/p>\n Ooh, look at me, I\u2019m a telephone There\u2019s that \u201cplease\u201d again, right alongside the ambiguity of at once issuing commands and comparing oneself to a machine. One thing I\u2019m interested in, in all of this, is that these issues are still so live almost a quarter century later; that for all the reams of feminist (and other-ist) criticism the late twentieth century produced, we\u2019ve got not just a can of worms but an intractably tangled\u00a0knot<\/em>\u00a0of worms on our hands here. And no, first time out we didn\u2019t bother to comment on how funky and fucky this song is. That\u2019s so much of its appeal\u2014that for all its (semi-)sinister complexity\u2014it\u2019s also great to dance to. Which is its own breed of complexity.<\/p>\n I have a piece of unconfirmed trivia: Someone recently told me that the inexplicable line \u201cun chien Andalusia\u201d in the Pixies song \u201cDebaser<\/a>\u201d\u00a0(sort of a reference to \u201cUn chien andalou\u201c and sort of not) was originally \u201cstrip Apollonia,\u201d Apollonia being the gal who replaced Vanity when she bowed out (and the group became Apollonia 6\u2014still referring, we must suppose, to the breast count).<\/p>\n O vanitas vanitatum<\/i>. What\u2019s next?<\/p>\n Yrs _____________________<\/p>\n \n From: Alex Abramovich Em, that\u2019s a fantastic anecdote, about the Pixies\u2014any sense of how true or verifiable it might be? Because, if the original refrain was \u201cstrip Apollonia \/\u00a0ha ha ha\u00a0ho\u201d\u2014well, that puts \u201cWanna grow up to be \/ be a debaser\u201d in a whole new light. Not to mention the bit about \u201cslicing up eyeballs,\u201d which is actually the part of the song that\u00a0did<\/i>\u00a0make sense to me. Incidentally, I spent a long time revisiting the Pixies last year, after (a.)\u00a0Sam Lipsyte\u00a0got me hooked on Frank Black\u2019s solo work and (b.) the good folks at Slate<\/em> asked me to\u00a0write\u00a0about the band, in the course of which assignment the most interesting thing I ran across was Black\u2019s Oulipian approach to age-old problems of form versus meaning. Here\u2019s the relevant passage:<\/p>\n On tour, [the Pixies] were known to play their set-list alphabetically, or in reverse chronological order (starting with the encore). In the studio, their lyrics took the shape of anagrams, sonnets, and haikus. For them, meaning was secondary to sound and syntax, and depth was an illusion\u2014what counted was the meticulous construction of surface attributes: not the stock rock explications of what \u201cour love is … \u201d\u00a0but the sharp enjambment of<\/p>\n Our love \u201cOur songs are random,\u201d Black Francis told interviewers. \u201cI write songs by singing a whole bunch of syllables to chord progressions and they become words.\u201d<\/p>\n I bring this up, not because\u00a0I<\/a>,\u00a0too<\/a>, have been self-googling, or because I think Pixies songs are as obscure as they\u2019re cracked up to be\u2014e.g., \u201cI was talking to preachy-preach\u00a0about kissy-kiss \/ He bought me a soda \/ He bough me a soda \/ He bought me a soda and he tried to molest me in the parking lot\u201d doesn\u2019t seem to be too hard to decode\u2014but because I think it\u2019s interesting that the Pixies often did try to foil our expectations of what and how a song could mean. Try as we might to push our way into a song like \u201cDebaser,\u201d there\u2019s Frank Black, pushing just as hard to keep us out (and thereby, interested).\u00a0<\/p>\n Which brings us in a roundabout way to \u201cthe question of whether [Nasty Girl] is ultimately a song about power.\u201d You write: \u201cI think it is, and actually a pretty smart one, in that it doesn\u2019t assert either of the easy sides of the argument (i.e., either the gazer or she who holds the gaze being empowered) but ricochets between them, which may be why there\u2019s that infinite regression in who\u2019s imagining what in the song\u2019s set up.\u201d That\u2019s beautifully phrased, and just right: infinite regression, and the ensuing layers of ambiguity\u2014aren\u2019t those the very reasons it\u2019s taking us two days, and six thousand words, to decode a song that takes five minutes to listen to (that is, if you\u2019re able to listen to it just once!)? If you\u2019ll allow me one more tangent, is it a coincidence infinite regression, and neurotic self-awareness\/reflexivity, are also the concerns of some of the more\u00a0interesting\u00a0writers<\/a>\u00a0working today?<\/p>\n \u201cDrive Me Wild\u201d is another good song to bring into the mix. (I\u2019m curious: Why are you more willing to ascribe authorship to Moonsie than Matthews?) You\u2019d have to rope in R. Kelly\u2014\u201cGirl you remind me of my Jeep,\u00a0I want to ride\u00a0it\u201d\u2014to come up with a better example of woman-as-commodity fetish. And, like R. Kelly\u2019s song, this one strikes me as especially sad. Look, Moonsies is saying. I know you\u2019re going to objectify me no matter what I do or say, so I\u2019m going to beat you to the punch and objectify myself. The world this song is describing is a world in which no one really looks into another\u2019s eyes, except to catch their own reflection. And\u00a0what the song has in common with \u201cNasty Girl\u201d (or, at least, the interpretation of \u201cNasty Girl\u201d we seem to be working toward) is internalization, bred of an anticipation which may or me not be rooted in some form of something a more religious man might call despair. Still, I wonder: Can it be yet another coincidence that one punishment for the original\u00a0fall<\/a>\u00a0from grace was the burden of self-knowledge?<\/p>\n I\u2019m out of my depth here, but I do want to address a few of your remaining questions. Re: \u201cthe knot of worms.\u201d Emily, it\u2019d take a\u00a0better<\/a>\u00a0man to untangle it for you. But I\u2019m not sure there\u00a0is<\/i>\u00a0a solution. Members of the Frankfurt School (who would probably approve of this exchange), or feminist theorists (who probably wouldn\u2019t) have helped us come up with a way of framing the problem we\u2019re touching on\u2014of keeping it in our heads, and feeling our way around and inside it. But the problem\u00a0itself<\/i>\u00a0is a paradox\u2014a Mexican standoff between Vanity, Prince, and the listener\u2014in which (1.) The pseudo-literary construct known as Vanity\u2019s existence is predicated on our\/Prince\u2019s perception of her as a nasty girl, but (2.) seeing Denise Matthews as such tends to strip Denise and Vanity both of any authentic, lasting, communicable reasons to be. Well, the collective efforts of H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Cixous, Jacques Lacan, and the\u00a0Baffler\u00a0<\/em>boys couldn\u2019t get you out of that mess. To quote Vanity\u2019s mentor, something in the water doesn\u2019t compute. And, I have to ask: Is it one last coincidence that Denise Matthew\u2019s own, initial impulse was to self-destruct?<\/p>\n Re: role-playing and puppetry. Did you happen to see Megan Matthews\u2019s comments on yesterday\u2019s exchange?:<\/p>\n Look how nasty Prince is: so nasty he can create a woman who\u2019s so nasty she\u2019ll go into feeding frenzy for 7 inches or more. But she can\u2019t be totally indiscriminate; that would cast aspersions on Prince. Hence, the longing for someone who can do it \u201creal good.\u201d\u00a0And hence the anxiety about what the guy thinks. What is it that Prince is trying to prove anyway?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I think she\u2019s on to something here, don\u2019t you?<\/p>\n Re: fellatio. You know, at thirty-three\u00a0I don\u2019t\u00a0feel<\/i>\u00a0fifteen years past my sexual prime. But I have to admit, fellatio didn\u2019t even occur to me. Funny, isn\u2019t it, that you and I had completely counterintuitive gender-specific reactions. Or, did we?<\/p>\n Re: Nina Simone\u2019s \u201choo-hoo.\u201d Would you mind just saying that again?<\/p>\n Re: danceability. I referenced the Gang of Four yesterday and, well, their ethos amounted to playing danceable songs in which the undertone was always \u201cStop! The very thing you\u2019re now dancing to is killing you!\u201d A mixed message if ever there was one. But then, there are lots of songs like this\u2014songs which use the form against itself. (The first truly political rap song,\u00a0\u201cHow We Gonna Make the Black Nation Rise<\/a>\u201d, by Brother D. and\u00a0the Collective Effort\u2014\u201cWhile you\u2019re partying through the night \/ The country\u2019s moving too to the right\u201d\u2014or even Young Tiger\u2019s anti-bebop \u201cCalypso Be,<\/a>\u201d\u2014both fit the bill.) Which brings to mind an old\u00a0Ramparts<\/i>\u00a0article\u00a0quoted\u00a0on this site a few months ago:<\/p>\n Rock and roll is not a revolutionary music because it has never gotten beyond the articulation in this paradox [the author\u2019s just described rock musicians, and their followers, being \u201ctorn between the obvious pleasures America held out and the price paid for them,\u201d but a paradox is a paradox is a paradox]. At best it has offered the defiance of withdrawal; its violence never amounted to more than a cry of \u201cDon\u2019t bother me.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Paradox, paradox, wherever you turn. I\u2019d better stop, else my head will explode, but some final thoughts before I do: Has your opinion of the song, and your sense of what it really does mean, changed since you first heard it after that long pause between freshman year and earlier this month? Do you think it\u2019s a sad song? A vile song? I think it is, in some ways, a terrifying song. But I can\u2019t, for the life of me, stop listening. So: it\u2019s been a pleasure working this stuff through with you, Emily.\u00a0I\u2019d never have gotten this far myself, and, despite the stuff I said above, I don\u2019t think we didn\u2019t get anywhere. Sometimes articulating the problem can be its own solution.<\/p>\n As ever, \n __________________<\/p>\n From: Emily Barton Dear Alex,<\/p>\n The source was Amy Benfer, the arts reporter for Metro<\/em>; I believe she\u2019d been writing a piece about the Pixies and had somehow discovered this. It really\u00a0is a wonderful possibility, though, isn\u2019t it? I mean, the entire first verse could run:<\/span><\/p>\n Got me a movie, I want you to know Which is significantly more upsetting than the verse as it stands. It also, then, ties in to what you said so eloquently about \u201cDrive Me Wild\u201d: \u201cThe world this song is describing is a world in which no one really looks into another\u2019s eyes, except to catch their own reflection. And what the song has in common with \u2018Nasty Girl\u2019\u00a0(or, at least, the interpretation of \u2018Nasty Girl\u2019 we seem to be working towards) is internalization, bred of an anticipation which may or me not be rooted in some form of something a more religious man might call despair.\u201d Slicing up eyeballs, indeed. I\u2019m also thinking about how the thoroughly sexualized leather-wearing girlbot-ninja-assassin character in William Gibson\u2019s\u00a0Neuromancer<\/i><\/a>\u00a0has polarized lenses embedded in her eye sockets. Her eyes work, behind them, but can never be seen. And I guess that as long as we have Cixous and Lacan in the mix, we might take it all the way back to Bentham, whose\u00a0Panopticon<\/a>\u00a0essentially took as its premise that the very fact of visibility is a form of punishment.<\/p>\n Megan\u00a0is<\/i>\u00a0on to something. Partly I think that what we\u2019re all onto, here, is the simple pleasure of turning a very bright light onto something so small it may not ever have been meant to be seen. As you say, five minutes to listen to it, two days and crampy fingers to puzzle it out, and we haven\u2019t even arrived at an answer. But, like you, I\u2019ve found this conversation profitable. (And sometimes, not arriving at an answer is the best place you could end up.) My opinion of the song\u00a0has<\/i>\u00a0changed through discussing it with you; I find it a lot richer and more disturbing than I thought I did, a lot less celebratory. This kind of engagement is, I think, one of the great consolations of late culture: a way of speaking and thinking and being that causes us to reconsider and grow. Unlike current political discourse, which mainly seems to ask us to retrench. (I hope I\u2019m not flying off on a huge tangent to quote from Abraham Lincoln\u2019s second inaugural address. I stumbled across this passage the other day: \u201cWith malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation\u2019s wounds.\u201d I am frankly undone by the idea that a political leader could be so modest about his understanding of what\u2019s right, and so generous in his idea of how to use it.)<\/p>\n To wrap up some small points:<\/p>\n 1) It\u2019s funny, I\u2019m not actually any more likely to ascribe authorship to Moonsie than to Vanity; I think it equally likely that Prince wrote, or had a hand in, both songs. But that certainly is what I wrote.<\/p>\n 2) The odd thing about what I agree with you about\u00a0our counterintuitive gender responses to the \u201cdown on my knees\u201d\u00a0bit is that it would only stand to reason that straight women would think about fellatio at least somewhere\u00a0near<\/i>\u00a0as often as men do. Or wouldn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n 3) No, I will not say hoo-hoo again.<\/p>\n Thanks for making this conversation possible, and for its many pleasures.<\/p>\n As ever, <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Denise Matthews\u2014aka Vanity\u2014died this week, at the age of fifty-seven. In memoriam, we\u2019re sharing this \u201906 exchange from the late, lamented Moistworks, the music blog founded by James Morris and more or less edited by Alex Abramovich. Read Part 1\u00a0here.\u00a0 From: Emily Barton To: Alex Abramovich Date: 6\/2\/2006 Subject: Down on my knees<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":937,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[6537,21202,21203,46,642,1329,21200,12333,17313,21199],"class_list":["post-94651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-memoriam","tag-bessie-smith","tag-denise-matthews","tag-moistworks","tag-music","tag-nina-simone","tag-prince","tag-prince-and-the-revolution","tag-the-pixies","tag-vanity","tag-vanity-6"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\n To: Alex Abramovich
\n Date: 6\/2\/2006
\n Subject: Down on my knees<\/p>\n
\n Dear Alex,<\/p>\n
\n I\u2019m a brand new convertible, child\u00a0
\n Never been driven baby, you\u2019re the first\u00a0
\n Come on baby drive me wild.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\n Whatever you want, just dial
\n Come on,\u00a0honey,\u00a0please it\u2019s so easy
\n Come on baby, drive me wild<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\n EB<\/p>\n
\n To: Emily Barton
\n Date: 6\/2\/2006
\n Subject: Our Love Is Rice & Beans\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n Is<\/i>\u00a0rice
\n And beans.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\n Alex<\/p>\n
\n To: Alex Abramovich
\n Date: 6\/2\/06
\n Subject: The pleasures of conversation<\/p>\n
\n Slicin\u2019 up eyeballs, I want you to know
\n Girl is so groovy, I want you to know
\n Don\u2019t you about you, but I want to
\n Strip Apollonia
\n I want to
\n Strip Apollonia
\n I want to\u00a0
\n Strip Apollonia
\n I want to\u00a0
\n Strip Apollonia
\n Wanna grow
\n Up to be
\n Be a debaser<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\n Emily<\/span><\/p>\nAlex Abramovich<\/a>\u00a0is the author of\u00a0<\/em>Bullies: A Friendship<\/a>, which will be published in March.<\/em><\/div>\nEmily Barton\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0new novel,<\/em>\u00a0The Book of Esther<\/a>,\u00a0comes out this summer.\u00a0<\/em><\/div>\n