Brett Callwood
Brooklyn-based artist Lyris Faron, the front-woman for the experimental rock band Talulah Paisley, and former member of Sloppy Jane and T-Rextasy, revisits “Exile In Guyville.”
Lyris Faron: I have loved Liz Phair for a very long time. I had never heard anything like her album Exile in Guyville when I discovered it in high school. It was around the time that I was starting to write songs, and it helped give me the courage to continue doing so. I found this quote around then from an interview with her. She said that songs are always in you. And they’re living in a slab of marble. And all you have to do is chip away at them, sculpt them, and you’ll find them. This helped me feel: I can do this, too. And she was writing about things I was going through. As if she could read my mind! Being a girl and having one’s first experiences with boys and oh, how it can really, really hurt. Take her song, “Fuck and Run.” You have someone over, after the deed, he puts his head on your chest to listen to your heartbeat, then says he has to go ’cause he has a lot to do tomorrow. And you could’ve seen yourself really liking him. And on the one hand, you “knew much better” than to call him, on the other — you’re still “alarmed.”
I once flew to Texas for one night just to go see her play Exile in Guyville. She rarely tours, let alone tours this album, and I hadn’t been able to make it to her New York date. I realized I would regret it for the rest of my life if I didn’t go see her. I looked at her tour route and saw she was playing in Dallas in a few days. I had just gotten a credit card and felt like I could do anything.
And after I bought the plane tickets, I asked myself: Am I doing something crazy? And what if something bad happens to me while I’m traveling alone? But I realized I wouldn’t be alone the entire time — I’d be with Liz. And sometimes in life you have to do something a little crazy, and take risks. That’s how you grow. That’s, well, life. It’s what happens when you interact with the world in a new way — even if it’s scary. There’s the song “Polyester Bride” by Liz, two records after Guyville.
Do you wanna be a Polyester Bride?
Do you wanna hang your head and die?
Do you wanna find alligator cowboy boots they just put on sale?
Do you wanna flap your wings and fly away from here?
So there I was, just like the song. No, I didn’t wanna be a Polyester Bride. Abiding by dusty conventions about how women should live. So I packed my cowgirl boots in my backpack and I flew away from here.
I went straight to the venue from the airport. And before I knew it, there she was. She is in her fifties and she was wearing black leather hot pants and black knee-high boots. She was incredibly graceful. She was absolutely note-perfect. A stagehand snuck onto the stage every few songs to silently replace her mug of tea on a stool. She told us, “When you’re young, you fight so hard to make your dreams come true. Then you get security and acceptance and you realize those were the best days of your life.” My heart jumped when she sang the word “cunt” during “Dance of the Seven Veils.” On the recording she sings it rather softly. At the show, she sang it with so much power, pride, and a big smile.
I realized how brave she was — to put out this record where and when she did. There is this photo of her performing in Chicago in the ’90s. The packed audience is entirely men. To get up on that stage, dare to pick up a guitar, and sing her own songs about how it feels to be a young woman, an outsider, about her sexuality, and how mean the very men she is singing to can be. How lonely that must have felt. How vulnerable. She is even naked on the cover! I also realized how many of the songs are super unique. They’re not always poppy, maybe they don’t have a chorus, their lyrics don’t come out of an obvious place. Yet people responded so much to them. You never know what can happen when you share what is authentic to you.
On the flight back, something flashed out of the corner of my eye. Oh, God, this is it. I thought. The plane’s going down. Then I saw that it was a shooting star. And because we were up in the sky, I could really see it. It was green and orange and blue and it burned across the heavens. I thought: “Someday, I wish to make a bangin’ record. Just like Liz.” ❖
Talulah Paisley’s Fool album is out June 11. The “What’s it Like” single is out now.