I have this funny ability to remember, with startling accuracy, the circumstances under which I have acquired almost every album or book or dress that I own. I bought Mary Lou Lord’s Got No Shadow at Randy’s Records in Owen Sound, the store that we used to frequent in high school – I remember digging around for musicals soundtracks with Leith, and then later, digging around for Monkees albums with, you know, some guy, name best left unspoken. But anyhow. I don’t know if Randy’s is still there, but it was the kind of record store that was dingy and dusty and Randy was sort of weird and, I think, lived in the back of the store, and I’m pretty sure he’d listened to every album that came in because he would have something to say about every album I bought. And I remember him telling me that this Mary Lou Lord album wasn’t very good. But I bought it anyway, because I knew she was on Kill Rock Stars for a while and had some connection to Kurt Cobain and the whole Seattle scene, and that struck me as decent enough pedigree. And the album is fine – it’s not the most revolutionary thing I’ve heard by any means, and coming back to it years after the fact, I notice that the first half of the record would really benefit greatly from kicking the tempo up a notch or several. But there are a few really great songs on here. After the slightly plodding first half, it’s like someone showed Mary Lou an electric guitar and was like “HERE. Try this. It’s called an electric guitar,” and things generally get better. Jingle Jangle Morning is really deliciously poppy, and there’s a fun cover of Shake Sugaree. I think my favourite song on the album, though, is She Had You.
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She Had You fascinates me because of how bitter it is, and also because it speaks to class tensions in a really powerful way. The song is about a girl who is described as a “waste of space,” but managed to one up the song’s protagonist because she managed to get the guy or girl that the protagonist wanted, and still wants. The line that really sums it all up for me is “she never made it, she’s selling Avon, but she had you,” which is one of the most evocative lines I’ve ever heard in a song because it encapsulates so many things at once: firstly, the idea that there’s something contemptible about not having the wherewithal to get out of the small town where you grow up; secondly, that there are certain careers that are more intrinsically valuable than others (ie: selling Avon); and thirdly, that even if you make it out of that small town, even if you’re doing something seemingly productive with your life, what really matters is the relationships you’ve had along the way, what really matters is getting what you really really want. (Zigga zig ah.)
And obviously, I don’t really hold with the sentiments that the character in the song is espousing, but I think they’re the sort of things that we believe in without really wanting to. I’m not going to lie, I shake my head when I think of the people that I went to elementary school with who still live in Nowheresville, Bruce County, even though I know that I was able to leave because I come from a pretty privileged socioeconomic position and had certain choices open to me that other people don’t have. I find She Had You really compelling because of how it raises the question of who gets to leave and who stays behind. It’s a song about privilege and memory and resentment and how our pasts create our presents.
Seriousness aside, though, Mary Lou Lord supposedly dated Kurt Cobain and famously fought bitterly with Courtney Love, and it’s kind of fun and juicy, if far fetched, to imagine that she’s singing to Courtney. Just saying.
Anyhow, this song is very 90’s alternative scene to me, so I was on the lookout for a dress that wasn’t necessarily “vintage” from the 90’s (I maintain that anything more recent than 1985 is not vintage, it’s just second-hand, which, I acknowledge, is my own totally arbitrary definition) but would be the sort of dress that would look good with a pair of 18 hole Doc Martens. Something that Mary Lou or Courtney, or, like Kat Bjelland or someone might wear on stage. I like these:
(again, from Thrush, on Etsy, a shop that I seem to browse pretty frequently)
(from Rusty Zipper Vintage)
Oh, Randy’s Records. Oh, Randy. Last I heard, both were still there – right in the hole in the wall where we left them.
PS: you need to post a picture of the 18-hole Doc Martens, too.