Broken Girl Media | Bedtime Stories for Broken Girls

How do you feel about fifty shades of grey?

A few things:

(1) I’ve never read the book, and am unlikely to see the movie. If I want to watch a film about people wrecking themselves with sexuality, I’ll watch Steve McQueen’s Shame again.

(2) I think the “romanticizing abuse” meme is horseshit. Romance is abuse; even at it’s most benign, it’s self-flagellation. Romance is suffering, and aching, and longing. It’s the right word said at the wrong time, the missed connection, and the crossed wire. Romance is the hunt, the capture, and the quiet, empty hours after the feast. Even those adorable, romantic photos of 80 year old couples holding hands are just a way of smiling in the face of death. If we didn’t romanticize pain, there would be no purpose in romance at all.

(3) I don’t care if Ian Fleming’s stories gave people unrealistic ideas about spycraft, and I don’t care that some horny Twilight fan has given people unrealistic ideas about kinky sex. Fiction isn’t advocacy.

“Creeps Like Me” – Lyle Lovett

Look around, and you will see
This world is full of creeps like me
You look surprised, you shouldn’t be
This world is full of creeps like me

Lyle’s late ’80s/early ’90s approach to his work had a huge impact on the way I view writing. He once said in an interview that there was something inherently satisfying about pairing richly orchestrated, “legit” music with absurdly contrasting lyrics… he was HiLoBrow long before it became hip, and it gave him lots of creative room to shift seamlessly from the funny to the macabre to the romantic, often within the same song.

Creeps Like Me isn’t the ideal example of his approach (that would be Here I Am from 1989’s Lyle Lovett and His Large Band), but it does make a nice theme song for this blog.

“Secret Silken World” – David Baerwald

I took a ride with a sadist on a Saturday night
His teeth were like diamonds in the dashboard light
He knew a place nearby, we took a right at the light
and I smiled ‘cause I’d never, ever been there

David Baerwald’s A Secret Silken World is about the uncomfortable allure of a creepy old pervert who feasts on gormless youth, so yeah, I’m more or less contractually obligated to include it here.

She looked more like a plate than a scared little girl
Her pupils were pinpoints as he fingered her pearls
It was crossing my mind to maybe give her a whirl
until I noticed her fingers were trembling

“You Do” – Aimee Mann

You stay the night at his house
With no ride to work
And I’m the one who tells you
He’s another jerk
But you’re the one who can succeed
You’ve only got to prove your need
And you do
You really do

One of the best movies of the ‘90s happened to have one of the best soundtracks, because Paul Thomas Anderson was smart enough to recognize and utilize Aimee Mann’s genius. Virtually every song is a gem, none more faceted or brilliant than You Do.

The sex you’re trading up for
What you hope is love
Is just another thing that
He’ll be careless of
But though there are caveats galore
You’ve only got to love him more
And you do
You really do

“Ain’t So Easy” – David & David

I’m sorry about your eye
I’ll find a way to make amends
it’s only that sometimes
I have to break before I bend

Ain’t So Easy uses brilliantly observant, fucked-up words to compress the breadth of a man’s abuse of a woman —the violence, the stunted demi-apologies, the minimization, the conflation of love and possession, and the steadily escalating threats— into just under five minutes of song, pairing those darkly persuading, persuasive lyrics with an almost disturbingly upbeat ’80s folk-pop sound.

Which is the beauty of the thing; the Davids (Baerwald and Ricketts) made Ain’t So Easy as deceptively seductive as its subject. They tempt you to hum along, focus on the chorus, buy into the romantic hyperbole, and essentially… look the other way. Only when you begin to pay attention does the song smack you in the face with your own cheerful complicity.

Put that suitcase down
leave it for another day
stop this foolin’ around
I could never let you get away

“Squealer” – AC/DC

Squealer is a pulsing spectacle of sexual nihilism, but then, the entirety of Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap reads like excerpts from a sociopathic sex addict’s dream journal, all the while driving home the idea that “sociopathic sex addict” is just another way of saying “rock star”.

“Where Do You Think You’re Goin?” – Dire Straits

Where do you think you’re going?
Don’t you know it’s dark outside?
Where do you think you’re going?
Don’t you care about my pride?
Where do you think you’re going?
I think that you don’t know
You got no way of knowing
There’s really no place you can go

You gave me fortune
You gave me fame
You gave me power in your God’s name
I’m every person you need to be
I’m the cult of personality

I was still a teenager when this came out. I remember sitting in my room, squinting at a 13” TV as Arsenio Hall introduced the night’s musical guest.

White kids my age didn’t remember Hendrix, and only knew Chuck Berry because of Happy Days and Back To The Future, so there was a moment when I looked at these dreadlocked black dudes with guitars and assumed I was in for Earth, Wind, and Reggae or something. It’s possible I considered changing the channel.

Then Vernon Reid lit up the stage with that opening riff, and gave me a rapid, mind-opening education.

“Mother Mother” – Tracy Bonham

I know the blog’s soundtrack is starting to look like a Lilith Fair lineup, but the ‘90s were a very good time for those who enjoyed listening to women howl out their pain.

Intriguingly, at the end of the decade, most of those shattering, disturbing women’s voices were brushed aside by a sixteen year old in braids who was begging to be hit one more time. Go figure.

“Flower” – Liz Phair

This is how you seduce a man:

Everything you ever wanted 
Everything you ever thought of is
Everything I’ll do to you
I’ll fuck you and your minions too