Cat Power: Lived In Bars

She is a verbal temptress, using Dylanesque tricks of language to get us to do the heavy lifting of her evocations, teasing up all the pictures and emotions we come pre-wired with. When she once wrote about something specific and concrete, it took me four years to realize it was an achingly beautiful, tender and knowing tribute to Kurt Cobain ('I Don't Blame You'). I've had little comprehension of her writing, although 'Lived in Bars' provides hints enough--send in the trumpets, the marching wheelchairs, open the blankets and give them some air, swords and arches, bones and cement, the light and the dark of the innocent of men.

But I'm charmed, even if I know beyond any doubt her art is rooted in the torment of not being wanted, as charmed as if Emily Dickinson sang Safe in Their Alabaster Chambers. She's even more artist than that, infinitely more dangerous, and she honestly doesn't believe she's pretty but you'll see her when you click on that video. Her real name is Chan Marshall, and she's about to be as big as artists can get. If this woman sang a grocery list, you would say oh, what sagacity perishes there, the hulls all of our ships be damned, and she would leave scars on your heart. Then she'd ask you, "Could you get me some takeout? Are you mad at me?" The lyrics:

We've lived in bars
And danced on tables
Hotel trains and ships that sail
We swim with sharks
And fly with aeroplanes in the air

Send in the trumpets
The marching wheelchairs
Open the blankets and give them some air
Swords and arches bones and cement
The light and the dark of the innocent of men

We know your house so very well
And we will wake you once we've walked up
All your stairs

There's nothing like living in a bottle
And nothing like ending it all for the world
We're so glad you will come back
Every living lion will lay in your lap
The kid has a homecoming the champion the horse
Who's going to play drums, guitar or organ with chorus
As far as we've walked from both of ends of the sand
Never have we caught a glimpse of this man

We know your house so very well
And we will bust down your door if you're not there

We've lived in bars
And danced on tables
Hotel trains and ships that sail
We swim with sharks
And fly with aeroplanes out of here