Liberal Women Singer/Songwriters

And gardening...

When I am gardening I often listen to music or podcasts. I think plants like to hear birds and people singing. Earlier this season, during the planting process, I listened to some old, favorite liberal female singer/songwriters, from my coming of age as a man. Real divas (not the fake tranny kind). You might be familiar with most of these songs.

I used to have a crush on Edie Brickell until I found out she married Paul Simon (they have been mostly happily married for 30+ years.) This song always spoke to me because I have long been fond of solitude.

One of the things I made progress with during that crucible, working 16hr days for a month and a half this spring, was not crucifying myself. There is a line from the protagonist, John Atreides, of George Herbert’s Dune, Messiah, “inside, here lay the true horror. How could he protect himself from himself?” I have been my harshest judge as long as I can remember, there is no competition. I have made many mistakes in this garden/orchard process, which I will likely list in a future post, but I was very good about dealing with it and moving on. No time nor point for self pity or other assorted self-abuse.

Sometimes it is best just to feel..it..all…(though this song seems to have become part of the eternal matrix soundtrack.)

Regina Spektor is like the sweet, light, upperclass, cultured counterpose to the deep dark guttural Fiona Apple, both piano driven.

Sarah McLachlan is both fierce and Canadian earnest (Feist is a Canuck too, but not so earnest.)

Indigo Girls. This was a favorite album of mine for a year at least. Of all their songs this is the one I most like to sing.

My Pandora liberal women list is simply called Ani DiFranco (she’s the only one here I am certain is a lefty.) I get the best most varied music from the algorithm by giving the algorithm no (direct) information, though that seems to work better on Pandora than Spotify. I surprised myself, not having listened to these artists in years, how many songs I know the words to and can harmonize with. Ani DiFranco in my estimation is the High Priestess diva here, the best, most talented singer song-writer of Generation X, man or woman, and equally under-appreciated (Prince was a boomer). I care not much at all for her ideology (when she was young), but I think she is one of the most beautiful women in the world and it makes me happy to know she is still making music. Her live album Living in Clip is one of my favorite albums. I love the musicality of all her early albums (I haven’t kept up with her of late.)

It is interesting for me to see, how much these women influenced my voice, despite that I suspect our politics today are likely far apart.

I feel far apart from liberal women generally. Both of the women I have been in deep relationship with in my adult life were quite “progressive.” Looking back now at 50, I realize how much I had to emasculate myself to be in a relationship with them. With both, I felt as though I had to answer not just for every awful thing a man had done to them, but every awful thing men had done throughout time. No man can take all of that on and clear it for another. In the end it didn’t matter what I did nor how, I don’t think either woman truly wanted to be in a relationship with a man.

I thought it might feel different, moving to rural, conservative country. But I have clearly crossed some invisible barrier at fifty, I feel quite persona-non-grata now, somehow invisible. Which is not a bad place to be, actually, and maybe something like my intention. Women here are just as unapproachable as they are in the city, they are just as skeptical, cynical, wary, bitter, wounded - and independent. Is it just me, or have we killed romance as a culture, with the sexual revolution, Me Too, postmodernist critical theory, covid policy, consumerism, managerialism? Scientific materialism seems to have drained us of our essence, of the grand context of being human, trading the divine mother for smothering unaccountable technocrats. Have we destroyed relationship between men and women, cynically, as if the human ideal is atomized androgynai alienated from relationship, family, community and love? Women embraced financial freedom, but at what cost? Many of the women I have met recently are economically independent, but they don’t cook, they don’t garden, they don’t have any particular skill unrelated to the jobs they have filled, they are like bar-coded consumers in a global market - a lot like the men are. Modernism has not been particularly healthy for women or men, if chronic illness and the number of anti-depressants dispensed is any indication. It should be no surprise we are in the midst of global ecological mayhem when we aren’t even allowed to tell the difference between men and women anymore.

I don’t mean to imply I’m enlightened about relationships, or that I even make a good partner, I’m just done emasculating, dehumanizing myself.

The algorithm at Pandora seems to be pushing this song from Ani. I’m glad to hear she is not so angry anymore, that she is more empathetic, more about love; I suppose as a society we could use a bit more of that.

These ladies all seem to keep politics to themselves these days, which is wise probably. Ani is a master of melding politics and art, but mostly art and politics becomes mere propaganda.

Wherever they stand, there was something soothing about listening to them, singing along, harmonizing, while I put seed in the ground; If they might not appreciate my politics, I imagine they would all appreciate the garden:

artichoke center, beans left, brussels right, wall of tomatoes background

cabbages and potatoes

Left to right - heavenly blue morning glories on the fence, tomatoes, carrots, onions, beans and kale. Lower right cabbage were turned into sauerkraut.

Not exactly high cinematography, but what do you expect from a guy who wears sunglasses over glasses.

Happy Friday!