In retrospect, a better name for Edie Brickell & the New Bohemians might have been Edie Brickell & the Proto-Slackers. "What I Am" is like the inaugural salvo of '90s slacker rock. If there existed a Mount Rushmore of slacker rock, Edie Brickell's face would surely be on it, alongside Alex Chilton's, Gordon Gano's, and Paul Westerberg's. I've heard it said that if one smokes a little too much pot, and if one is not listening too closely to "What I Am," one might literally hear her sing the lyrics "Oh well, whatever, nevermind." Its potent aura of detached apathy would rapidly become ubiquitous, but must have seemed novel in 1989, when this peaked at #7. I feel like no piece of news, no matter how significant, could have punctured Edie's veneer of coffee house cool. "Edie, the Berlin Wall just came down!" "I dig it, man." "Edie, Hitler just exterminated 6 million Jews!" "Whatever man, religion is a smile on a dog." "Edie, aliens just landed on the White House lawn!" "Hey, cool, do they wanna come to my poetry reading tomorrow night?" It takes a lot to rile Edie up.
My guess is that roughly the same amount of people only know of "What I Am" because they've asked themselves the question, "Hey, what is Paul Simon's wife famous for?" as the amount of people who know that Edie Brickell ended up marrying Paul Simon because they asked themselves the question, "Hey, whatever happened to that singer who did 'What I Am'?" If you crunched the numbers, I swear it would break about even. I'll bet many casual music fans know this song but are still unaware that the singer ended up marrying Paul Simon. I mean let's face it, on the celebrity couple totem pole, they're not exactly John and Yoko, or Madonna and Sean Penn. They don't perform together. They don't pose naked on album covers together. They seem like normal people. At least she doesn't owe her fame to her husband - unlike her husband, of course, who owes his fame entirely to Art Garfunkel.
But back to the song. Seriously, I don't hear a shred of '80s here. If you told me that "What I Am" came out in 1993, I would, without hesitation, believe you. At a quick glance, it appears to be in the folk-based, Suzanne Vega/Tracy Chapman vein, but upon closer inspection, it's got more than a hint of funk to it. The wah-wah guitar solo wouldn't have been out of place on a Spin Doctors record. Here is the blend that Sheryl, Alanis, Sophie B. Hawkins and company would take to the bank, my friends.
Just look at 'em! She's got hippie chick hair, jeans, a beaded necklace, and she spends 80% of the video not giving a fuck where the camera is. The bassist is wearing a tie-dye t-shirt and has a goatee, for crying out loud. They look like they just returned from an exhausting round of hackey sack outside the local Peace Corp. office. Are you positive they never toured with Blues Traveler and Phish at some point during the OJ trial? The ultimate irony of Edie Brickell & the New Bohemians is that Edie Brickell & the New Bohemians hardly benefited from the apathetic, flannel-drenched wave they helped usher in. Not that they would have cared anyway.
1 comment:
Serious, Man, Write A Blog Post About All I Ever Wanted, the Kathy Valentine's memoir book:
https://utpress.utexas.edu/books/valentine-all-i-ever-wanted
All I Ever Wanted traces the path that took her from her childhood in Texas—where she all but raised herself—to the height of rock ‘n’ roll stardom, devastation after the collapse of the band that had come to define her, and the quest to regain her sense of self after its end. Valentine also speaks candidly about the lasting effects of parental betrayal, abortion, rape, and her struggles with drugs and alcohol—and the music that saved her every step of the way. Populated with vivid portraits of Valentine’s interactions during the 1980s with musicians and actors from the Police and Rod Stewart to John Belushi and Rob Lowe, All I Ever Wanted is a deeply personal reflection on a life spent in music.
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