Violent Femmes - Violent Femmes
When I was a teenager, broke and wishing I could afford some new music, I happened to see this CD in the public trash can outside the local used record shop. I speculated that someone must have tried selling it to the shop, failed because it didn’t have its original liner notes, and threw it away instead. Never one to let perfectly good trash go to waste, I fished it out and discovered a new favorite band.
I had never heard of the Violent Femmes before, but I had heard one song on the album already: Blister in the Sun, which a group of kids had played at a church youth group talent show. That song has since become one of my favorites to sing at karaoke, and I suggest you try it as well, because the more breathy and uneven you are due to nervousness the more like the original you’ll sound. Plus it’s short, catchy, and repetitive.
Speaking of repetitive, the subjects and themes on this album are pretty narrow. The songs are almost all about the petty frustrations and simpleminded hungers of horny teenagers. And yet, they don’t sound at all like the emo bands that were popular in my youth, with their disproportioned rage and narcissism. They’re simplistic and rough and sincere, and very singable, but without the slightest trace of commercialism or pretense. And there is something deeply comforting about it. A part of me is still a petulant child with delusions of maturity, and listening to this album helps.
There seem to be no instruments all except for vocals, guitar, bass, and drums - the basic elements that a group of high schoolers might assemble in a garage in the hopes of achieving their dream of rockstardom. I don’t know if they nailed the garage-band aesthetic so perfectly because that’s what they were or if it was a calculated manipulation, but I don’t think I care because the result is just so enjoyable.
I will talk a little bit about my favorite song on the album, Add it Up, which I think of as a masterpiece expressing the continual disappointment and frustration that we all, every one of us, must face as a result of not living in a world catered to fulfilling our every desire.
why can’t I get just one screw
believe me I’d know what to do
but something won’t let me make love to you
The first few verses establish that, day after day, something is missing, and hints that something is eventually going to crack.
take a look now what at your boy has done
he’s walking around like he’s number one
he went downtown and he got him a gun
don’t shoot shoot shoot that thing at me
you know you’ve got my sympathy
but don’t shoot shoot shoot that thing at me
We live in a terrifying time, and as while everyone who cracks has some sick political or philosophical justification of what they’re doing, I can’t help but wonder if there’s a simpler explanation: all these frustrations and disappointments and perceived injustices just add up until the whole world needs to be punished. I don’t think it’s because life is any more fair for the people who aren’t spewing rage like a volcano. Something else is going on here, and I aim to figure it out.
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