Tag Archives: Rock

American Teenager: Ethel Cain

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Ethel Cain is the pseudonym of Hayden Silas Anhedönia, a singer song-writer with a cult following of mostly young liberal arts students. Her most famous project is her 2022 concept album “Preacher’s Daughter,” which as my friend Kaya said is “not really the right thing to listen to on a roadtrip at night.” The concept album ends with Ethel Cain being cannibalized by a lover. Throughout, it deals with themes of abuse, family secrets, religion, and the American landscape. Sonically, “Preacher’s Daughter” is a combination of ambient music, folk, and rock. The album can be seen as a consideration of the Southern Gothic Genre, with its themes of despair, depravity, and the haunting of the present by the past. It’s genuinely so beautiful— my favorite tracks are “American Teenager,” “Sun Bleached Flies,” and “Strangers.” 

The theological dimension of this work is also fascinating to me. The oft quoted line “God loves you, but not enough to save you,” well, I think that it’s very honest, especially in a case like Ethel Cain’s. She spends a portion of the album on the road with the man who will eventually murder her. She must have seen a hundred billboards with JESUS SAVES plastered on them. But Jesus doesn’t save Ethel from her horrific fate. How can the good God of American Evangelical Christianity, who offers peace, salvation, and is often said by televangelists to offer earthly prosperity etc. allow this horror? Cain’s suffering is often compared explicitly to Christ’s throughout the album. 

An analysis that would do theodicy and christology in “Preacher’s Daughter” justice is beyond the scope of this blogpost— however, I would like to examine the song “American Teenager.” It is the most typical pop song on the album— it feels like it could have been written in 80s or 90s, with a catchy chorus, some sparkly synth, and an electric guitar part that sounds quite like Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’”  (at about 3:43-4:00 in American Teenager, at about 1:00-1:06 in Don’t Stop Believin’). I’ve never been on a highway and not had “Don’t Stop Believin’” come on the radio. Both songs evoke a peculiar feeling— the same feeling I get driving along the endless highways of the U.S. at once home and homesick: complete isolation, the particular derelict buildings outside my window are alien to me; but also a sense of comfortable familiarity, I’m sure I’ve seen them before. This paradox— total alienation as well as total identification is what allows “Preacher’s Daughter” to work. 

Cain said in a statement to Pitchfork that the track is deals with her frustration with the American Dream. Particularly interesting is this: “What they don’t tell you is that you need your neighbor more than your country needs you.” Which, of course is the opposite of what her character expresses in this song: “I don’t need anything from anyone/It’s just not my year/But I’m all good out here.” Still, the isolation isn’t complete: 

And I feel it there

In the middle of the night 

When the lights go out 

And I’m all alone again

[Or the second time through]  

When the lights go out

But I’m still standing here. 

There is both a conspicuous presence of something (I feel it there), but also absence of everything besides this, and Cain herself. The track features a lot of reverb, especially on the vocals, and I cannot help but think this is intentional: Cain is unable to fully break through her isolation. She is her own constant companion, and whatever other presence is there remains somewhat remote to her. In the chorus, she sings: “Say what you want, but say it like you mean it/With your fists for once.” She is seeking sincerity, but there is the troubling implication that the only way it could truly be expressed to her would be through violence. This is perhaps mirrored in the theology of the album: In “American Teenager,” she somewhat ironically prays “Jesus, if you’re listening let me handle my liquor/And Jesus, if You’re there/Why do I feel alone in this room with You?” But in the track “Ptolomea,” when Ethel Cain is murdered, we hear this blessing: “Blessed be the children/Each and every one come to know their god through some senseless act of violence.” I could start writing about the place of violence in Christian theology and what all this means… and I would like to. But I think for the sake of this blog post, I will have to leave my inquiry here (for now), with an anecdote. This fall, I attended a dance at my college and for some reason one of the DJs chose “American Teenager.” It struck me as strange, to pick a song from the concept album about cannibalism to get a room full of college students to dance, but there I was dancing. It was too loud for me, but I took out my earplugs anyway. By the end my cheeks were wet, and my mouth was open in a silent smiling scream with the lyrics. I had encountered something. Preacher’s Daughter is a sublime work—whatever presence Ethel Cain is feeling in the absence around her, I feel too and it is overwhelming.  

  



Kids These Days… and Their Music

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Folk music underwent a major resurgence in the mid-1900s. In this time, folk music served as a major vehicle for spreading and reinforcing major social movements. Naturally however, wherever in history one finds an attempt to enact social change, one can just as easily find a backlash to said proposed social reform. As Sir Isaac Newton put it so eloquently: “To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction.” (Admittedly, Newton was referring to thermodynamic systems, not societal ones, but the statement holds nonetheless) This brings me neatly to today’s artifact – an opinion piece by Harry Golden from 1967 titled: Only in America… Democracy Hangup1. There is a certain irony present throughout the article, but it peaks when Golden, after spending more than one paragraph complaining about liberal college students, says:

“It is for that reason we have checks and balances written in the Constitution. Left to their own devices, the collegians would elect Bob Dylan President and Joan Baez Secretary of State.”

If only Golden could see America now – how the turntables have turned!

Historical irony and The Office aside, it is fascinating to see how some things really do seem to never change. The generation of which Golden refers to as “militant college students” representing “democracy at its entropy” is the very same generation that has turned around and started saying “kids these days this…” and “millennials that…” Granted, the statements I am making are overly generalized, there are certainly many members of older generations who are more than understanding of social issues today, and many so-called millennials who are much less so, but the existence of such sayings at all is reflective of an unfortunate underlying truth – a fundamental fear of relinquishing control and passing the baton to the next generation, and the distrust that goes alongside said fear.

Nonetheless, I digress, for the fascinating topic that this Golden article alludes to is that of music as a fundamental part of social movements. As Ray Telford says in his piece in Volume 3 – Issue 13 of Rock2: “[Sedaka] “felt the time was right” for a composer with something to say.” Whatever Sedaka’s motivation at the time may have been, it is worth noting that music, whether it be folk then, or rap now, has been a key part of social movements for a long time. Perhaps Newton could have said: To every action there is always an equal… piece of music?

1 Golden, H. (1967, Dec 09). Democracy hangup. The Chicago Defender (National Edition) (1921-1967) Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/493210749?accountid=351

The Runaways Planted a Cherry Bomb in the Rock Industry

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The Runaways

The Runaways in the 1970s.

The Runaways were one of the first all-female rock bands in the 1970s. They recorded and performed from 1975 to 1979. The band was formed in 1975 by Joan Jett and Sandy West (rhythm guitarist/songwriter and drummer, respectively) with the help of producer Kim Fowley. After several arrangements of members, the “original” five were completed by Lita Ford on lead guitar, Cherie Currie on vocals and Jackie Fox on bass.

Best known for their single, “Cherry Bomb,” The Runaways were not well-known in the United States during the time that they were active, achieving greater success in Japan due to that single and a successful 1977 tour.

“Cherry Bomb,” inspired by Currie’s “cherry-blonde looks and name,” was written on the fly at her audition to be the lead singer of the band after she had shown up planning to sing Peggy Lee’s “Fever.” Combined with Currie’s choice to don a pink coset she bought from a small lingerie shop, the success of the song impounded as Currie’s sexual appearance added to her stage presence, increasing the appeal of the song to their audiences. The song became the Runaway’s anthem and fight song, and by blatantly using Currie’s sexuality and sexual appeal, they inspired many people to divert from societal expectations and become more daring in their dress and expression.1

In an interview for a 2010 issue of Goldmine magazine, Currie said that she is “proud of what The Runaways did [. . .] That we went from just kids in the Valley – and Huntington Beach and Long Beach – to following our dreams and standing up there for the rights of girls and women everywhere, that [showed that] hey, we can do this and we can do it as well as [men] can.”

Shortly after their tour of Japan came to a close before 1978, the band’s lineup as followers commonly know it disbanded with Currie leaving. Throughout the band’s existence, the group has had five different bassists (Micki Steele, Peggy Foster, Jackie Fox, Vicki Blue and Laurie McAllister). Three members remained relatively unchanged: Joan Jett on vocals and guitar, Lita Ford on guitar and Sandy West on drums. The “original five” appear on their first three albums together, and for the final two, West, Blue, Ford and Jett performed as a quartet. Due to disagreements over which direction the band should go in musically, the band split up in 1979.

After their breakup, each member went on to pursue their own projects. Joan Jett went on to found Blackheart Records, through which she wrote and performed music as Joan Jett and the Blackhearts as well as helping other artists with furthering their work. Currie is under contract on Jett’s Blackhearts label and spends the majority of her time chainsaw carving after spending years as a drug counselor for addicted and at-risk teens. Ford and West worked on music together for a time that did not come to much fruition and are now involved with their own projects.

The Runaways were important to the rock genre because they were one of the pioneering all-female groups in the 1970s. Continuing in the vein of all-female musical acts prior to the 1970s, The Runaways trod into the unfamiliar territory of the male-dominated rock genre, using their sexuality as a mode for making their music accessible and appearing “less threatening” to male listeners as they sang songs about female liberation and rebellion to the pulse of heavy rock. The Runaways were a truly subversive, producing music that fit into an already rebellious genre, they achieved international success in a field that was not immediately welcoming to them while deconstructing the stereotypes the rock music industry had for women breaking into the genre.

Bibliography

1. Lindblad, Peter. “The Runaways’ ‘Cherry Bomb’ gets a chainsaw.” Goldmine (10552685) 36, no. 8 (April 9, 2010): 44-46. Music Index, EBSCOhost(accessed April 21, 2015).

2. The Runaways. Cherry Bomb: Live in Japan. Concert excerpt, Japan 1977.

Jazz at St. Olaf

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Lentjazz It seems St. Olaf has been hesitant to embrace Jazz as a sound musical genre, especially in regard to liturgical music. In this 1968 article of the Manitou Messenger, Ms. Berglund summarized a student jazz liturgy setting performed in chapel and asks questions that point to Jazz as a potentially profane and intrusive art form for worship. “Is jazz profaned by its association with night-clubs or can it also be a song of praise?”[1]

jazzarticle

Contrast this with an article from 1977, when The Preservation Hall Jazz Band visited St. Olaf in what the Manitou Messenger calls the “most enthusiastically received concert at St. Olaf.”[2] The Preservation Hall Jazz Band is made up of a pool of musicians that rotate over the years, but was started by Allan and Sandra Jaffe in 1961 New Orleans, who were interested in preserving the traditional jazz style free from commercial imperatives.[3] Becoming famous by touring and recording, Preservation Hall is internationally known and remains one of the popular tourist sites of New Orleans, so of course it was a big deal that they came to our humble little bubble at St. Olaf.

jazzstolaf

The writer goes on to say that “everybody has heard Dixieland jazz before, but this concert gave us all a chance to see and hear a jazz band doing it the way it was originally done. This style influenced every form of American music since 1900, from Joplin’s rags to Chicago’s rock.” Perhaps due to a lack of curriculum on jazz at St. Olaf at the time, or general lack of scholarship, the writer has a misconception that jazz influenced ragtime, when in reality the syncopated rhythms of ragtime along with the blues style are cited as the origins of jazz. In addition, to assume that the concert of 1977 was a presentation of how jazz was originally done is a pretty bold claim, considering any time a performance claims some kind of authenticity, there are certain details/styles included and excluded. These two examples suggest St. Olaf is not a little bubble, filled with scholarly prowess and immune to the world’s ideals. The stereotypes about the origins of jazz and its perceived development as a “profane” style pervade music history as well as St. Olaf history. We can’t say St. Olaf, as an academic and music institution, was above these problematic notions about Jazz then, so my question is, has much changed?

[1] Marcie Berglund, “Lent services feature Heckman’s jazz liturgy,” Manitou Messenger, March 1, 1968.

[2] Mike Stiegler, “Original Jazz Preserved for Olaf Audience,” Manitou Messenger, March 4, 1977.

[3]  Grove Dictionary of American Music, 2nd ed, s.v. “Preservation Hall Jazz Band.”

A Muddy link from Blues to Rock

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As blues gained popularity through publication and performances it became blended with other types of popular music. Blues and rock music were obvious candidates for combination, both drawing on folk instrumentation and sharing similar subjects. In Chicago, which was a hotbed of blues music when many black musicians migrated to Chicago to leave the South. Possibly the most influential musician of the blending is McKinley Morganfield AKA Muddy Waters. Waters got his start at home in Mississippi when Alan Lomax traveled there on behalf of the Library of Congress in 1941 and again in 1942. Waters was later released on the album “Down on Stovall’s Plantation” from these recordings.

DownonStovallsThis recording shows us that Muddy Waters is a legit player of the blues from the south and would be taken seriously by white audiences in the North.

In 1943, shortly after Lomax’s visit, Waters moved to Chicago in hopes of making it big as a blues musician. As Muddy Waters made his way as a blues performer he made with friends with Big Bill Broonzy who helped Waters become popular. This article from Cultural Equity highlights some of the connection between Muddy Waters and Big Bill Broonzy. Muddy Waters was put on singles in the late 40s and through the 50s in Chicago. RecordAdWaters gained popularity from recording Robert John tunes who had been on the blues mind since 1938 from the “Spirituals to Swing” concert in New York (Here’s a short RadioLab episode about this concert and Robert Johnson, it’s great!).

Muddy Waters became very popular in Chicago and was seen as a performer who was keeping the folk in the blues and rock that he was performing. Because he had such a close connection to the south and his history there. The Defender wrote an article to this effect in 1972. Muddy Waters keeps alive an Afro-American culture