One of the last true, talented singer-songwriters is LIZ PHAIR.
Who? — you might ask.
— An immensely gifted, envelope-pushing, drawing-outside-the-box, pop music writer whose demons (goaded by the domineering and destructive feminist Zeitgeist) showed up a lot in her songs.
I wouldn’t recommend some of her current and past music to some friends today for their song lyrics and themes that would make a sailor blush. (Once upon a time, they would have, anyway.)
Liz Phair’s discs set up shop in my music players during my wayward and wandering-in-the-spiritual-wilderness days — long before I found my way back to the Faith. On some of those lost days, one found temporary and superficial solace in Phair’s angry and adolescent-minded cynicism.
This track from 1998 is fit for general consumption, and remains tuneful, with typical Liz Phair lyrics.
Polyester Bride (from whitechocolatespaceegg album)
Phair came back onto the scene in 2021 after an 11-year hiatus (I’d shunned her music by then). She decided to revive her older and more recognizable, “lo-fi” Phair sound. And rightly so.
Her best music producer Brad Wood returned to the studio with Phair for this latest release (He can be credited for the musical attractiveness of her “Whip-Smart” and “Exile in Guyville” albums — both of which possess many complex yet catchy tracks. (Many may see them as marred works, driven by Phair’s feminist, angry, blush-inducing, drunken sailor-cursing lyrics.)
The album whence the track above comes from is relatively tamer than her previous ones. Even then, some early fans already accused her of “selling out” to a more polished, “suburban mom” vibe.
Most readers likely have no idea of what I’m babbling about here, so let’s just go back to the music!
Interesting to juxtapose these two related tunes written 12 years apart (and for Phair, following a marriage, a baby, a divorce, and the usual sad debacles of modern broken relationships). She may be older and perhaps a bit wiser now — but only just so.
Dosage (from Soberish album)
(Liz Phair, 2021)
“I think of it as a modern-day ‘Polyester Bride’ in that I wrote it with the idea of going back to that bar, where Henry the bartender gave me all that good advice when I was young, and coming back as an older woman and seeing a young woman who is basically in the position I used to be in. So, I’m now looking at myself in the younger person who’s wasted, giving her advice, but also saying, ‘By the way, you’re doing fine. Nobody has it all together. Even now, at my age, none of those decisions were even the impactful ones.’”
(Ack. This part may come off as condescending.)
While such a life and outlook might make for interesting, perhaps, musical creations — for her sake, I also pray that Phair’s rebel spirit finds the true counterculture contradicting the wiles and deceptions of this world, and discovers the comfort and hope offered by an authentic, God-centered faith.