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| Women’s Quest for Empowerment in the Pop-Music Culture of the 1990’s
Beata Maruszak | |||||
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INTRODUCTION
Everyone needs to recognise the
important role of the media in creating, perpetuating and challenging t modes
of femininity and masculinity and in the creation and perpetuation of specific
power relations between the genders. The general observation made by feminists
is that the variety of female models in the media, as compared to male ones,
has been quite limited. The vast majority of media representations of women are
male creations because women have largely been excluded from shaping those
representations. The dominant stereotypes of women in the popular media, as
traced historically through the twentieth century, fall into three main
categories: the ‘vamp’ type popular in the early decades, the ‘dumb blonde’ in
the middle and the ‘superwoman’ in the last quarter.[1]
In the post-modern period, however, starting roughly in the 1970’s, women have
been given more chance to formulate thoughts about themselves and express them
through popular culture forms. It has been happening due to the post-modern
breakdown of traditional boundaries such as between popular and elite culture,
or between masculinity and femininity, and experiments with and multiplying
forms of representation. These phenomena have had a strong impact on pop-music
culture which has always been an arena for powerful self-expression. An
interesting example of the post-modern freedom of expression in popular music
are works of female performers exposing women’s creativity and musical genius.
This paper, inspired by indigenous lyrics and performances of selected British
women artists, seeks to examine a sample of the more controversial and
innovative representatives of the female music scene in the nineties. A short historical survey will show
the evolution of the female pop-music scene in Britain from the 1970’s to the
1990’s. The most noticeable change has happened over the past three decades -
throughout the post-modern period as women have steadily broken away from
stereotypes that society and the music industry have imposed on them. Since the
1970’s the notion that rock is exclusively male and that sexual roles are fixed
has been falling apart. Male and female bands began copying each other’s style
on stage. A sex-theme became the obsession of the 1970’s and found its powerful
outlet in the copulatory boogie-woogie pulse of disco music represented by
numerous female groups and vocalists, for example Donna Summer or Sister
Sledge. They adopted a sexy, kittenish style which expected from them by male
producers. When the revolution of punk-rock music came, there emerged the image
of a rebellious, punkish woman who was anti-fashion, anti-sex and generally
anti-mainstream conventions. The legends of the female punk movement are Debbie
Harry, the American vocalist of “Blondie”, whose striking visual appearance
(ripped vinyl minidress with razors hanging from the hems) stood in clear
opposition to the ‘dumb blonde’ stereotype and the English female band the
“Slits” known to have subverted conventional ideas of sexuality and beauty.
Some other controversial rock artists who shocked the public with their bold
looks and performances were Chrissie Hynde, Siouxsie Sioux, Poly Styrene and
Patty Smith.[2] The decade of the eighties was
dominated by the advent of MTV - a music channel which offered global
visibility and which by the mid-eighties turned into a tough and sexist master
of women performers. The female groups launched at that time, “Bananarama” and
the “Go-go’s,” became new MTV stars, typical commercial constructions - bouncy,
sexy, corporate and non-threatening. They sang in agreement with Cindy Lauper’s
anthem Girls just want to have fun.[3] The
late eighties witnessed a change in the way women decided to represent
themselves on the stage and a fresh phenomenon was the appearance of Madonna.
Madonna’s style incorporated mainstream pop, feminist issues and a rising cult
of celebrity. Her call to Express yourself offered empowering experience
to millions of her female fans. Madonna and Annie Lenox (another MTV star who
has adopted an extravagant and mannish looking image) are said to have exposed
the female as a social construction that can be applied or deconstructed at a
whim. Other controversial performers of the eighties were Susanne Vega and who
took up social issues (“My name is Luka”) and so-called ‘women
troubadours’: Eddie Brickel or Tracy Chapman, whose poetry-driven lyrics were
significant departures from the MTV ‘fun-oriented’ style.[4]
There was also Yoko Ono from the sixties with her influential track “Woman
is the Nigger of the World” All of the performers presented here have in
different ways contributed to the shape of the British women’s pop-music scene
of the nineties. This
paper focuses on the most innovative of female pop-music works of the 1990’s,
examining videos and lyrics which can be considered expressions of women’s
empowerment. The term “women’s empowerment” means a reclamation of power,
confidence and dignity which seems to have been largely lost in the patriarchal
society. The research material consists of
the most recent videos as well as songs’ lyrics. It is analysed at two levels:
The
methodological approach follows from the duality of the material as the visual
side of pop videos requires semiotic analysis. “Semiotics is an attempt to
apply scientific principles to the study of signs in order to explain
how meaning is produced.”[5]
The paper attempts to show how the meaning of women’s empowerment is
constructed by examining visual signs such as setting, props, body language,
actions and outward appearance. The categories of cinematic techniques such as
camera shot, angle, framing, lighting and editing are also discussed if needed.
The method employed to examine the lyrics is traditional literary analysis.
Lyrics are considered here as specific poems whose meanings can be fully
understood only in connection with music. Little has been published by
academics about female pop-music performers, hence the research relied on the
results of work done on women’s representations in related areas. The only
available studies concerned directly with women’s pop-music performances and
greatly helpful in the analyses offered in this work are: The Sex Revolts
by Simone Reynolds and Joy Press[6]
discussing rock’n’roll rebellion and women’s rock performances, and Black
Noise by Tricia Rose[7]
examining black women’s place in rap music and black pop-music culture in
general. However, both books deal with the women pop-artists who are either
different from those discussed in this paper or whose works come from a period
earlier than the 1990’s. This study investigates women’s performances that can
be considered innovative or controversial and shows how the female pop-artists
of the nineties have contributed to the ongoing process of women’s empowerment. The
field of pop-music culture has not been thoroughly investigated by feminist
scholars, yet the pop-media and the way they represent women seem to be one of
the favourite subjects of feminist studies. An interesting proposition put
forward by feminists is their conspiracy theory postulating that the “[m]edia
are bastions of male privilege spurred on to keep feminism at bay.”[8]
This perspective is partially backed up in film studies whose findings are
helpful in the analysis of music videos because videos can be considered as
short filmic forms accompanied by a soundtrack. Questions on gender in film
studies centre on representations of men and women on the screen as well as on
viewers reactions to what they see. A classical text here is Laura Mulvey’s
article “Visual pleasures and narrative cinema”, in which she argues
that classic American films give priority to the so-called ‘male gaze.’
According to Mulvey there are two strategies used by men to represent the
female. The first aims at turning the woman into a fetish (the idea of fetishising
women by men is borrowed from Freud’s theory) and the other, concerning the
narrative role of the woman, places her in her due position in the patriarchal
order - she is either punished or reintegrated into a romantic relationship
with the man.[9] Another
academic discipline concerned with women’s representations is art history which
far predates media studies in examining the visual constructions of women. Art
extends its influence onto contemporary advertising, photography and pop-music
videos. The art historian John Berger claims in his Ways of Seeing that
Western art poses women, nude or partially clothed, for the benefit of the
masculine spectator.[10]
This cultural tradition appears to be internalised by women themselves. “They
do to themselves what men do to them, they survey, like men, their own
femininity”.[11] Another
art historian, Marina Warner, demonstrates in her Monuments and Maidens
that images of women have repeatedly signified qualities of a symbolic nature
(e.g. Eve, Statue of Liberty, etc.)[12].
According to her, “[m]en often appear as themselves, as individuals, but
women attest the identity and value of somebody else or something else”[13] In
contrast to what has been indicated in the above studies, this paper attempts
to show how female pop-music performers of the nineties strive to represent
themselves differently to the tradition of constructing the woman as an object
of voyeuristic contemplation or as an individual deprived of her own identity.
The study draws on the ideas of feminism and post-modernism, two cultural movements
whose concepts and objectives appear to be of great use for the discussion of
women’s pop-music performances. In agreement with the paper’s
central argument that women claim empowerment through pop-music forms, the
three parts of the study will explore three different aspects of women’s
empowering experience: emotional strength, free expression of sexuality, and
position in society. Today’s British women pop-music
artists are a non-homogenous group divided by ethnicity, nationality and class
and the present paper does not deal with the whole spectrum of women’s
pop-music productions. It draws cultural conclusions only from a small sample
of female pop-music works of avant-garde character which seem to reflect the
larger cultural phenomenon of women’s quest for empowerment and throw some
light on the positive transformation of the media representations of women. THE
EMOTIONAL TRAUMA OF BEING A WOMAN
I
think it’s a fascinating time to be a woman, particularly with the millennium
changes about to happen, the shift in power toward women, and our perception of
women as being strong leaders and having viable opinions and creative things to
say. Sheryl Crow[14] Cultural
studies, informed by feminism, focuses on the unequal position of men and women
within social structures. Key areas investigated include: the family, work
and sexuality. The devaluation of women’s role, whether as mothers, workers or
sexual partners, has always been of central concern to feminist activists. This
part deals with a sample of women’s pop-music songs from the nineties and
concentrates exclusively on the intimate ground of personal relationships and
female identity seen in terms of self-perception, attitude towards the self and
emotional development. The songs studied here are a response to profound female
anxiety and vulnerability associated either with sexual intimacy or with the
social implications of being a woman in the patriarchal and highly commercial
environment. In the course of the
analysis, two dominant types of women’s experience have emerged: 1) inner loneliness,
disintegration and estrangement as the effects of a weak and undeveloped sense
of self; 2) a sense of power
resulting from inner transformation and resistance to the power imbalance
between men and women; The two types of experience are
considered here under two analytical categories that organise this part into
two consecutive sections: women’s complaint and women’s rebellion. The first section, a
rock-music illustration of women’s emotional crisis, exposes the demand
for empowerment by pointing to the
sphere of identity and intimate relationships which needs to be substantially
improved. The demand for women’s empowerment in the area of personal life has
been already formulated in the famous feminist creed: “The personal is
political”. “The personal is political” highlights the fact that the dynamics
of personal relationships, let alone the experience of falling in love, is
determined by the social relations of power between the sexes. Love is usually
heralded as the enemy of power, something which can save women from oppression.
Feminists have challenged this idea and have demonstrated critically how
“personal” areas such as sexual relationships, marriage, motherhood and
friendship are socially constructed and organised in ways which benefit men at
the expense of women. This situation, according to feminists, should be
addressed and changed by women themselves.[15]
In this context, the second section shows how women’s demand for empowerment is
being implemented by women pop-music artists who boldly and assertively address
the emotional pains inflicted on them by men and the pressures of society. The material used here
consists of pop-song lyrics and the music accompanying them. Some lyrics are
extremely important carriers of the
meanings which is not to say that the music can be left out from the
analysis. For it is music that underpins the whole performance and provides the
emotional intensity so crucial for the reception of the pop-song message. It
even happens that the music expresses the message better than the words
themselves Therefore, the music frame is duly considered and discussed here. The pop-music groups and
their vocalists whose work is examined here are:
WOMEN’S REBELLION
MUSIC VIDEOS - THE POST-MODERN FORM OF WOMEN’S EXPRESSION
I’m a bitch I’m a lover I’m a child I’m a mother I’m a sinner I’m a saint I do not feel ashamed Meredith Brooks, ‘Bitch’ This part deals with one
performer, Skin of Skunk Anansie, who functions here as an example of how women
pop-music performers of the nineties represent themselves through the
post-modern, audio-visual medium of music videos. The emphasis is put on the
idea of women’s empowerment that is so well reflected in numerous other video
performances by women pop singers which the size of this paper means cannot be
discussed. The term ‘performance’ is used here in a broad sense for those forms
of musical events which are either live or pseudo-live. The music video is a
form of pseudo-live performance which also incorporates ‘live’ recordings from
music clubs or rock festivals. The general observation frequently made about
music videos is that, due to their preoccupation with visual style, among other
things, they are key examples of post-modern texts. Music videos are considered
as visual frames - ideal forms of performance which, due to their eclecticism
and intertextuality, well represent post-modern style in artistic expression.
Cultural historians and theorists treat videos as entertainments that embody
postmodernism. They have pointed to the fact that they combine commercial and
artistic image production and thus abolish traditional boundaries between the
image and its real life referent. It has been also suggested that the music
video spectator has become decentred and fragmented, no longer able to
distinguish fiction from reality.[26]
The music video as a
vehicle for inexhaustible post-modern forms of artistic expression is often
used by pop-music stars as their favourite performing medium and therefore
constitutes the site of the most interesting performance practices. Female
pop-music singers, whose creativity is discussed in this part, successfully use
video-forms to express themselves freely. Their bold, controversial acting is a
means by which they claim empowerment both as women and as pop-artists. Treated
as texts, the music videos chosen for analysis are approached holistically. As
they are partly derived from film forms, the analysis uses the terminology of
film studies and looks at their cinematic aspects such as camera techniques,
lighting, setting, use of colour and editing.[27]
The nature of the video as a ‘star text’ requires close examination of the
singer’s performance. His/her outward appearance (make-up, clothing) and body
language (poses, movements and dance techniques) must be carefully analysed.
Another important aspect of reading music videos is the sound-vision relation
Roy Shuker in his book Understanding Popular Music argues that “a
musicology of the music video image is the basis for understanding how to
undertake a credible textual studies”.[28]
Apart from the music, which largely determines the video imagery, the lyrics
are also of crucial importance. In cases where the visual side of the videos
constitutes a description or a pictorial extenuation of the lyric’s message,
their verbal side will also be carefully examined. The
video and performer included in the analysis is Charlie Big Potato by
the group Skunk Anansie - Skin (see Appendix) It has been chosen because it
features a British pop-music artist and its main theme is the demand of women’s
empowerment. WOMEN
IN ROCK: A TOMBOY Simon Frith and Angela
McRobbie have identified a male type of pop-music which they labelled
“rock-cock”. This term is best explained as “music making in which
performance is explicit, crude and often aggressive expression of male
sexuality”.[29] “Rock-cock”
performers are described as “dominating, boastful and constantly seeking to
remind the audience of their prowess and control”.[30]
The mainstream women pop-music performers promote two basic images. One of them
is dominated by self-pity and the need to be loved by the man; the other
valorises female sexual appeal which is to court the male gaze. From this
dichotomy of male and female pop-music performance emerge two quite opposite
pictures of a pop-music artist. The man is an active hard-rocking performer
whereas the woman is a relatively subdued artist frequently featured as a
sex object. However, there has always been a marginal group of female
performers trying to break the stereotype and offer an alternative performance
style. It was only in the nineties when they managed to come to the fore and
make their presence known worldwide, largely through access to the use of the
increasingly popular video form. The
style that Skin of Skunk Anansie represents in the video clip Charlie Big
Potato is that of a tomboy. She features in the clip as a performer who
seeks empowerment by impersonating to a high degree the toughness, independence
and irreverence of the “rock-cock” rebels. She adopts a highly androgynous
image which links her more with the tradition of typically male rather than
female rock performance styles. This image, however, well expresses the
empowerment of a pop-music artist by abandoning the stereotypical MTV picture
of a passive, kittenish diva and replacing her with an active, adventurous
woman-performer. Charlie Big Potato by Skunk Anansie is an
extremely dynamic video promoting strong, fast beat of hard-core music. There
are two different sets in which the video is shot. The first one displays a
wet, filthy, disgusting bathroom whose dirty walls, lit by dim greyish light,
swarm with cockroaches The woman vocalist - Skin, half-lying on the floor, is
mostly filmed in profile with low and high angle shots. These perspectives are
quite significant to the way the vocalist is presented. When she is slowly
rising from the floor the side view of her splashed legs and arms resembles a
picture of a gigantic spider-like insect. Not only the posture but the look of
the performer is striking as well. Skin is dressed all in black which marks her
out against the greyish background. The black colour of her clothes merges with
the black tint of her skin and hides her dark body from vivid exposure. She is
wearing a tight sleeveless outfit in the pattern similar to that of a coat of
mail. Her knee-long trousers, quite baggy at the ends, match her heavy unlaced
military boots. Skin’s head is totally shaven, she is wearing barely visible
make-up and no jewellery so as not to embellish this crude, mannish look. Her
body, although slim, is of quite an athletic and solid frame. Her feminine
features are not emphasized at all, which seems to be a conscious attempt at
desexualising her persona. Her man-like looks fit the violent atmosphere of the
whole clip and the subsequent shot depicts her in a scene typical for
“rock-cock” The talent is driven by some invisible power moving her body around
- twisting it, dragging it over the filthy floor and finally thrusting her
against the wall. She seems to wrestle with some mysterious destructive force. The rest of the video
scenes, set in a dark room, constitute the most dynamic parts of the whole
clip. Full shots display the live performance of the band. All the members are
dressed in dark colours and Skin is wearing a black tight overall covering
her body up to her neck. In a series of a waist and head shots, along with
numerous medium and extreme close-ups, camera records the band’s vigorous and
highly professional performance. The lighting and camera techniques greatly
enhance the video’s dynamism. The pitch darkness of the room is incessantly
shattered by bright flashlights exposing only fragments of the set and the
rapid editing disrupts linear time by creating a series of disjoined
collage-like images. Skin is presented in a number of frames featuring her
abrupt, violent movements but hardly ever exposing her whole body. The way she
experiences music is extremely vigorous. She is skipping hard, bending and
straightening up again, jerking her head and forcefully pushing her arms up.
Her elbows are most of the time extended as if in the gesture of self-defence.
The sharp rhythm and strong beat of the song, along with Skin’s violent dance
style, match the rapid editing and sheer physical aggression of the video. The
singer’s charismatic and electrifying performance fully expresses the
rebelliousness and power of the female artist. Her androgynous look is very
provocative and breaks the stereotype of a sexy and kittenish female performer. Rock - the “music world” of the angry young men - has
only recently become a home for female belligerence. Female rock rebellion
makes use of two different strategies of women’s participation in the
men-dominated rock‘n’roll culture. One of them, as discussed above, is the
presentation of the woman as a more androgynous individual whose ‘girlish’
attributes have been suppressed to a large extent. This ‘tomboy’ approach
expresses resistance to the commonly accepted style of the female pop-music
artist featuring either as a weak and self-pitying creature or as sexual
temptress performing for the benefit of male gaze. CONCLUSION
Women’s
pop-music creativity largely reflects the collective consciousness of modern
women and constitutes an excellent ground to investigate different signs of
women’s desire for empowerment. The paper, examining selected British women’s
pop-songs and video work from the nineties, has attempted to show the areas of
women’s empowerment most frequently taken up by women pop-music performers: 1.
the emotional
condition and position of women in heterosexual relationships and in society
generally; 2.
public displays
of female sexual freedom, including an androgynous blend of traditionally
established male and female roles. The songs and videos discussed here
articulate female fears, needs and pleasures which have long been relegated to
the margin of public discourse. They successfully sustain the cultural dialogue
with male and female audiences responding to a variety of issues relevant to
women: dominant nations of femininity, feminism, questions of sexuality,
identity crisis, and trauma linked to racial abuse. Female
pop-music creativity functions as a means of releasing painful tensions and
dissatisfaction and a way to express trials and tribulations that the condition
of being a heterosexual woman entails. In the studied songs, the woman’s
vulnerability, sensitivity and the ability of deep emotional involvement are
definitely considered as assets and not, as assumed so far, an indication of
weakness. They build up women’s power and wisdom and therefore should be widely
appreciated. The famous feminist creed “Personal is political” finds its
lyrical realisation in the female pop-music works presented in this study.
All of them strongly emphasise that the struggle for happiness and well-being,
tokens of modern women’s empowerment, starts at the level of personal emotions
and intimate relationships. Another way in which women artists
of the nineties seek and represent their new power is posing new challenges to
the male-dominated rock tradition. The image of a woman-singer established by
MTV - a kittenish, sexy diva, a commercial bait to attract male audiences - is
firmly rejected and replaced by a hard-rocking, sexually liberated, and
self-possessed performer who boldly breaks gender stereotypes and seriously
undermines the established position of rock-cock representatives. Charismatic
and wild performances of pop-music women’s talents exude power and confidence offering
the experience of empowerment to millions of female viewers. Even those female
singers who, like Skin, appear too tomboyish or too masculine to be viewed as
representatives of women rock rebellion also contribute to the process of
women’s empowerment by rejecting the star-role and confusing male viewers by
not yielding easily to sexual objectification. In general, the paper has attempted
to show - on a small sample of songs and performers - how the demand for women’s
empowerment was being realised in British pop-music songs of the nineties
Pop-music, a powerful multidirectional cultural device, seems to be currently
working for the greater benefit of women artists, giving them new opportunities
to express themselves freely in public. Pop-music creativity, producing and
reflecting cultural trends, should not be underestimated as a source of insight
into broader cultural transformations in the society that generates them. APPENDIX SKUNK ANASIE
Skunk
Anansie is a famous British rock group with the vocalist Skin. The band’s name
is both a historical reference and a warning. The band explains it: “Anansie
is a West Indian six-legged spiderman, Skunk - a cute little critter
that can turn truly nasty when messed with.”[31]
The group debut album Paranoid and sunburnt was named as one of the Top
Ten releases of 1995 by Time magazine. Two of the album tracks “Weak” and
“Charity” became Top 20 UK hits. Skin’s charismatic persona and the
bands incendiary live shows attracted the attention of film director Kathryn Bigelow who cast Skunk Anansie in her futuristic apocalypse
film Strange Days, in which the band performs their song “Selling
Jesus” live in an outdoor scene. Skunk Anansie’s success has been
largely due to their relentless touring and they made successful headlining
tours in Japan, Australia and the United
States. Another of Skunk Anansie albums Stoosh (1997) is said
to incorporate sounds from punk inspired
hardcore to new soul to wicked, chill-out grooves. Skin sums it up: “It’s
got a power, emotion, humour” Skunk Anansie has been criticised for being
politically involved. The vocalist retorts: “We’ve been slagged off for
being political, but music doesn’t have to be about feeling good all the time
(...) The minute you run away from politics, you run away from life.”
Their album Post orgasmic
chill (1999) which only confirmed Skunk Anansie’s popularity and musical
genius.[32]
The tracks discussed in the paper include: “Weak,” “100 hundred ways
to be a good girl”, “Little baby swastika”, “Intellectualise my
blackness”, “Rise up” from Paranoid and Sunburnt (1995); “Here
I stand” from Stoosh (1997); “Charlie Big Potato” from Post
orgasmic chill (1999). AND
HERE I STAND And here I
stand Redskin fist
of power Clawing at
the strains of racism It turns to
black, ‘Cause
you’re so very credible But you keep
losing track ‘Cos you
don’t see, my colour In your
melting pot of love Where every
fucker’s brown So here I
stand Knee deep in
your soiled heritage (That’s) so
charmingly underground So here I
stand, (stand s-t-a-n-d) (x4) So here we
stand, I’m looking at my sad, sad eyes They slowly
turn at rage Oh what a
shame I can’t
contain my basic nigga-rage And lust for
violence So here we
are The cry goes
out for war London’s
East end burning to the ground So here we
stand Blackened
fist of power Same old
scarred-up faces we condemn INTELLECTUALISE
MY BLACKNESS I hit him
with a piece of his philosophy Anglo-Saxon
muck in his type of greed What did he
do to deserve such hate... (He tried
to) intellectualise my blackness He put on
his leathers and his reggae trainers Threw away
Bob Marley put on maxi priest I told him
‘bout the problems of his conscious deeds (When he
tried to) intellectualise my blackness He tried to
summarize To
institutionalise Still I
could recognize He was
materialized He tried to
intellectualise my blackness To make it
easier for his whiteness He tried to
intellectualise my blackness, save me He’s always
tryin’ to make up for his little slips The joke about
the nigga and the yellow nip Then he
tells me I’m so different from those other shits (When he
tries to) intellectualise my blackness Motherfucker
don’t you lecture - rise me Don’t you
ever try to lecturise me LITTLE BABY SWASTIKA Who put the
little baby swastika On the
wall... Who put the
little baby swastika On the
wall... Wasn’t very
high... Couldna been
more than four years old That’s who
put the little baby swastika on the wall Who put the
little baby nigga-head On the
wall... Who put the
little baby nigga-head On the
wall... The eyes
were so big couldna been more than baby scrawls That’s who
put the little baby nigga-head on the wall You rope
them in young (x2) So small, so
innocent, so young So
delicately done Grown up in
your poison Who put the
little baby k’s up on the wall Who put the
little baby k’s up on the wall Dey got em
in a line I bet they wished they couldna sprayed up more That’s who
put the little baby k’s on the wall Who kicked
the little baby’s head Against the
wall... Who kicked
the little baby’s head Against the
wall... Who kicked
the little baby’s head Against the
wall... We kicked
the little baby’s head against the wall I caused a
major war just by talking You flew
into a rage, ‘cos that’s everything you know Childhood of
violence, filled with heartache I flew into
a rage, ‘cos that’s everything I know I know 100
ways to be a good girl 100 ways, my
willingness to please I know 100
ways to be a good girl Still I’m
alone, so alone, I’m alone, so alone (x4) Shielding
from unexpected fury Frightened
survivor in my world too shy to see Softly I
spoke softly I’m dying Crushed by
your power, by my willingness to bleed I know 100
ways to be a good girl 100 ways, my
willingness to please I know 100
ways to be a good girl Still I’m
alone, so alone, I’m alone, so alone (x4) Crucify
me... With
isolation Crucify
me... Inside my
private hell Lost in time
I can’t count the words (I) Said
when I thought they went unheard All of those
harsh thoughts so unkind ‘cos I
wanted you (And) Now I
sit here I’m all alone So here sits
a fucking mess, tears fly home A circle of
angels, deep in war ‘cos I
wanted you Weak as I
am, no tears for you Weak as I
am, no tears for you Deep as I
am, I’m no ones fool Weak as I am And what am
I now but loves last home I’m all of
the soft words I once owned If I opened
my heart, there’d be no space for air ‘cos I
wanted you With this
tainted soul In this weak
young heart Am I too
much for you You’re too
cool to be smart, but that is what you are You’re too
sane to be hard, but that is what you are You’re too
sad to be high, but that is what you are You don’t
have to run You got to
rise up, sweet woman child (x3) You’re
losing your convictions You’re too
wise to be cool, but that is what you re You’re too
deep to be good, but that is what you are You’re too
weak to be sold, but that is what you are You don’t
have to run You’re
losing all of your good convictions |