Mother Mother—Tracy Bonham
#365Songs: May 14
Given how wretched the vast majority of mainstream music was in The Aughts, it’s no surprise how quickly the 90’s were condensed and commodified.
In some cases, the commodification has been hyperbolically adulatory to almost nonsensical degrees. Yes, Nirvana was a great band. But Cobain was hardly the voice of a generation, and the omnipresent appearance today of his band’s logo in every mall in the world is truly ridiculous.
And the idea that The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill is the 10th greatest album ever (as Rolling Stone places it) is patently absurd. It’s good, but it’s not that good.
The opposite has happened as well. Albums and artists that were pretty darn remarkable in their day have seen a tarnishing of their reputations in the ensuing decades.
Sometimes they just kind of fade away. I don’t know many people who would agree that My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless is the #1 best album of the 1990s, no matter what Pitchfork says.
And while I’m personally thrilled to see American Water by the Silver Jews holding the #21 spot (David Berman is one of my favorite modern poets, despite having only released one book), I’m pretty certain that not more than 27 people in the world would agree with that ranking.
Music festivals played a big role in 90s music culture — to good and not so good effect. Woodstock 99 was pretty much the best and the worst of the 90s, all at once. A kind of Gen X Altamont. Lollapalooza started out fairly brilliant, and then turned into a ghastly and bloated cash cow.
And then there was Sarah McLachlan and Lilith Fair.
Before she became a punchline as the maudlin and tear-inducing voice of the ASPCA, Sarah McLachlan was a supremely talented and successful singer-songwriter who became a genuine revolutionary fighting for the rights of women artists. And if you haven’t heard her song “Possession,” do yourself a favor and listen. It’s extraordinary, as is the story behind it.
The 90s are sometimes seen as a golden age of political correctness, but while that is in some respect true, the abuse and scorn heaped upon Lilith Fair evidenced a degree of sexism that is still hard to fathom, even as our modern times are turning back the clock on women in ever more shocking ways.
McLachlan’s self-seriousness certainly did play a role in that, as did her choice of Lilith for a festival title. In certain mythological traditions, Lilith is presented as the first wife of Adam who was banished for not obeying him. The original Riot Grrrl.
The truth is, the festival was a revelation. The list of artists that performed during the original first three years of Lilith Fair reads like a true Hall of Fame:
Fiona Apple
Tracy Chapman
Paula Cole
Angélique Kidjo
Indigo Girls
Emmylou Harris
Jewel
Joan Osborne
Suzanne Vega
Holly Cole
Patty Griffin
Juliana Hatfield
Morcheeba
Sinéad Lohan
Cowboy Junkies
Des’ree
Diana Krall
Meshell Ndegeocello
Missy Elliott
Neneh Cherry
Badi Assad
Queen Latifah
Luscious Jackson
Cibo Matto
Susan Tedeschi
The list literally goes on and on and on. So much talent.
One artist that performed that first year (1997) was Tracy Bonham. The previous year, she’d seen her debut album The Burdens of Being Upright released by Island Records. The leadoff track was “Mother Mother.”
I’ll pause for a shocking factoid that Wikipedia has just served up to me.
“Mother Mother” was the last song by a female solo artist to top the Modern Rock chart until “Royals” by Lorde in August 2013.
Sigh …
Lyrically and musically, the song creates a portrait of life as a young modern woman in a lunatic modern world — moving back and forth between lies and truth, breakdown and repair, mellowness and mania.
Mother, mother, how’s the family?
I’m just calling to say hello
How’s the weather? How’s my father?
Am I lonely? Heaven knows
Mother, mother, are you listening?
Just a phone call to ease your mind
Life is perfect, never better
Distance making the heart grow fond
When you sent me off to see the world
Were you scared that I might get hurt?
Would I try a little tobacco?
Would I keep on hiking up my skirt?
I’m hungry, I’m dirty
I’m losing my mind, everything’s fine
I’m freezing, I’m starving
I’m bleeding to death, everything’s fine
Yeah, I’m working, making money
I’m just starting to build a name
I can feel it, around the corner
I could make it any day
Mother, mother, can you hear me?
Sure I’m sober, sure I’m sane
Life is perfect, never better
Still your daughter, still the same
If I tell you what you want to hear
Will it help you to sleep well at night?
Are you sure that I’m your perfect dear?
Now just cuddle up and sleep tight
I’m hungry, I’m dirty
I’m losing my mind, everything’s fine
I’m freezing, I’m starving
I’m bleeding to death, everything’s fine
The verses have a very grunge-esque anti-melodicism to them, and while the acoustic guitar sounds uncomfortably similar to the vanilla Bo Diddley-isms of George Michael’s “Faith,” the vocal line could just as easily have come off of an Alice in Chains outtake.
As to the electric guitars, the move from quiet to loud is a quintessential 90s trope codified as the Nirvana verse-chorus-verse model, but not even Nirvana ever got halfway close to the terrifying howl that is Tracy Bonham screaming “I’m fine!”
Gen X is a curious bunch. We were born before email and the internet, making us the only generation to have straddled both sides of the digital divide. We matured politically during the Clinton presidency, which gave us the longest period of peacetime economic expansion in American history. But as a sandwich generation, we’ve had to endure depressingly miserable behavior on either side of us. The unforgivable selling out of the boomers, and the utterly useless, digitally-powered self-absorption of the millennials. As a result, we’re a bit cranky, reclusive, and too smart for our own good.
Which is why—with the world on fire around us and a bomb going off inside of us—you can usually find us still going about our business, pausing occasionally to scream, “I’m fine!”
~
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