We all get songs stuck in our heads sometimes. If it’s in the middle of the day, and it’s some sort catchy pop tune, it can be a little aggravating, but a little fun too… On the other hand, if it’s at 3AM and the song is dark and disturbing, it’s a real problem. I’ve got “Berry” by Hole stuck in my head. That’s Courtney Love’s band and it’s off their first album “Pretty on the Inside.” You know you’re in for a good time when the first line of the song is, “Do you want to ride my death machine?” Of course it’s the chorus that’s stuck in my head…
And when I die
won’t you
bury me?
Cause baby
I bury you
deep
inside me.
It’s a frightful conflagration of sex, heroin use, violence and hopelessness. At this point in the album, she is feeling the accumulated weight of all of her (and other people’s) decisions and is lashing out. She ends the song with a lament/realiziation about her boyfriend the heroin dealer, “When you fall for the garbage man, you end up in the garbage…” Leaving off the obvious rhyme “can” from the end makes the word “garbage” just hang out there. She forsook cleverness with the rhyme in order to hammer home her opinion of her life and friends. The next song on the album is one of the most terrifying drug songs ever penned IMO. Luckily, that song, “Loaded” is not going through my head…
I’ve always compared that album to Orwell’s book “1984.” You can’t say that you enjoy reading “1984,” but you have to admit that it’s a powerful work. “Pretty on the Inside” is not for the faint of heart, it is one of the most brutal albums I’ve ever heard. It’s almost a concept album, the “main character” is introduced in the first song “When I was a Teenage Whore” and is promptly kicked out of her parents’ house. She goes to live on the street and becomes a literal whore, gets hooked on heroin, and it goes downhill from there. There isn’t a bit of sugarcoating, every song gets darker until at the end you almost hope she dies, then maybe the pain will end. If I picture a friend, high school classmate, or family member in the character’s place, I feel literal pain when listening to this, tears are not uncommon for me. The real power of this is the idea that as painful as this is to listen to, people actually live with these situations and feelings. We just get a peek of that life, that’s the reason to listen to stuff like this, to develop emphathy. The entire album is a monument to self loathing. The character never thinks much of herself, and she can never bring herself to forgive anyone, including herself. The writing is amazing and Courtney puts on one hell of a performance. A little too good as a matter of fact. There is so much pain and bile on this album that you can’t help but wonder if she made any of it up.
The calls to prayer are still going on outside, I need to think of another song, another album, another something. I can’t fall asleep with thoughts like this…