![\"Liz-Phair-Exile-In-Guyville-608x608\"](\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/06\/Liz-Phair-Exile-In-Guyville-608x608.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nExile in Guyville<\/i> is being re-released in honor of the upcoming anniversary (with extra tracks, a documentary, all that). Here’s an in-depth interview with Liz Phair about the re-release<\/a>.<\/p>\n That album means a lot to a lot of people, and I’m one of them. It’s an awesome record, and was quite revolutionary at the time. I still remember the goosebumps I got when I heard some of the tracks for the first time. The music is, if anything, under-<\/i>produced, but it was her lyrics that got me. (I know I’m showing my age by calling it a “record” but that’s what it actually was at the time.) She was a smarter bitchier sexier version of all the female musician images clogging our airwaves now: a little bit scary, maybe more damaged, but more herself<\/i>, with a mind cold and distant. She is vulnerable, but not necessarily soft. She was really saying<\/i> something on that album, and saying crap that a lot of people didn’t want to hear then and still don’t want to hear. <\/p>\n I am one of those fans of Liz Phair who did NOT feel betrayed by her later albums, although there’s something raw and almost scary about Exile in Guyville<\/i> (not to mention something scarily akin to my own experience at that time in my own life) that is not there in the later albums, but that’s par for the course with an artist’s journey. When you’re young and desperate and NOT famous, you sometimes have more courage and honesty and fame brings its own rewards, but also lessens some of that desperation. Not to mention growing up and having kids and all that. But Exile in Guyville<\/i> was a singular event, one of those albums that came along and expressed a truth about a certain KIND of person, in a certain KIND of environment.<\/p>\n Not all women are going to relate to the images of womanhood that Liz Phair exposes and expresses in Exile in Guyville<\/i>. You may feel shocked, or judgmental. <\/p>\n But if you do relate, you’re hooked for good because there were not a lot of other women out there doing what Phair did at that time. Liz Phair brings to the forefront a messy and complicated and beautiful woman – someone like Chrissie Hynde, perhaps, except Liz Phair does it in a mid-90s context, as opposed to a 70s and 80s context. <\/p>\n Liz Phair is strictly Generation X, and so am I. We are poster children for the cliches of our generation. We’re about the same age. We were in Chicago at the same time. Hanging out (in some cases) in the same crowd. The album came out as I was going through it<\/i>, so listening to it for the first time was one of those uncanny “Did she read my diary??” moments.<\/p>\n Like “Mesmerizing”, one of my favorite tracks:<\/p>\n You said things I wouldn’t say With all of the time in the world to spend it That’s so damn honest<\/i>. I want to thank her for being honest, because it gave me the possibility of seeing what I was doing as well, and being honest about it. I wanna be mesmerizing too. I am wild and unwise. I wanna be mesmerizing too. To you. Yes!<\/p>\n I listen to Exile in Guyville<\/i> and it still calls up that time in my life perfectly. My perception of it may be different now, I may be sadder, and have more regrets but the experience of the album is the same.<\/p>\n She’s a smart cookie. She has just grown as a songwriter in the years since. I’ll be a fan forever. <\/p>\n Listening to it today, the album still holds up a dark mirror, it still delves into womanhood – the Gen X brand of womanhood – that feels acutely and scarily right<\/i> to me, and it still expresses the joy and loneliness and wildness of that time in my life in a way that is almost too intense.<\/p>\n I love Phair’s comment in the article above about going to Oberlin:<\/p>\n So I came to Oberlin having a Lady Di haircut, wearing acid-wash jeans with flowers on them\u00e2\u0080\u0094like, “\u0080\u009cHi! I’m Liz! And I wear really strong blue eyeliner!” And I got my ass kicked by all these New Yorkers. The zeitgeist on that campus changed my perspective completely on gender and bravery.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I’ll say. Brave brave artist.<\/p>\n So happy birthday to Exile in Guyville<\/i> – an album that still has the capacity to freak me out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" … which means that I am a withered crone and did not even realize it. Exile in Guyville is being re-released in honor of the upcoming anniversary (with extra tracks, a documentary, all that). Here’s an in-depth interview with Liz … Continue reading
\nStraight to my face, boy
\nYou tossed the egg up
\nAnd I found my hands in place, boy
\nAfter backing up as far as you could get
\nDon’t you know nobody parts two rivers met?
\nDon’t you know I’m very happy?
\nYou know me well
\nI’m even happier
\nI like it
\nI like it<\/p>\n
\nWild and unwise, I wanna be mesmerizing too
\nMesmerizing too
\nMesmerizing to you<\/p><\/blockquote>\n