Domestic Violence and Sexual Abuse: Behind the Wall

Tracy Chapman: Behind the Wall

[Purchase]

I thought a good follow up to Suzanne Vega's "Luka" would be to post Tracy Chapman's "Behind the Wall". I wasn't able to find any internet confirmation, but I was always told that this song was Tracy's response to "Luka". The song is a haunting a cappella song from the perspective of Luka's neighbor, to whom Luka is speaking in Vega's song.

Like in the song, in reality, many outsiders feel helpless to do anything when confronted with domestic abuse around them. We are either silenced by social rules that tell us to stay out of other people's affairs, or we reach out only to find our attempts fail because the powers that be are unwilling or unable to step in.

Domestic Violence & Sexual Abuse: Southern Can Is Mine

Blind Willie McTell: Southern Can Is Mine

[purchase]

Sometimes, needing a break from the music, I'll turn on the police scanner for a diversion. The amount of calls to law enforcement for domestic violence is never ending.

A little research on the subject revealed that the difficulty in determining the precise numbers for domestic violence in the U.S. is that incidents often go unreported, there is no organization that collects information from local police departments about substantiated calls and reports, and there is disagreement about just exactly what should be included in the definition of domestic violence. However, there is data and estimations. One yearly estimate I read is 2 to 4 million U.S. women will be assaulted by a domestic partner. It is also estimated that physical violence will occur yearly in the United States in 4 to 6 million intimate relationships. Nearly 2 out of 3 women know their attacker. Women are 5 to 8 times more likely than men to be victimized by an intimate partner. According to the American Medical Association, almost 100,000 days of hospitalizations, almost 30,000 emergency room visits, and almost 40,000 visits to a doctor occur yearly in the U.S. as a result of domestic violence. Staggering.

Keeping someone in a state of fear, intimidation and control are also forms of domestic violence. And that is the premise of this song by "Blind Willie" McTell (also recorded by The White Stripes in 2000). Control by intimidation with threatening violence. Even though McTell recorded this in '31, this kind of mentality is still, sadly, very much alive in the United States. Stop The Violence.

Domestic Violence and Sexual Abuse: Luka

Suzanne Vega: Luka

[purchase]

One thing that happens in abusive relationships is that the abuser isolates the victim. She knows that any attempt to reach out to the outside world will be met with violence. To protect herself from this, the victim tries to maintain the illusion for outsiders that nothing is wrong. Even when the evidence to the contrary is almost overwhelming. This is Luka in a nutshell.

For the art for this post, I have used an image by Ieneke Jansen, from her series The Different Colors of Domestic Violence. To see more and purchase prints, go here.

Domestic Violence and Sexual Abuse: Me and a Gun

Tori Amos: Me and a Gun

[purchase]

I will never forget the effect this song had on me when I bought the CD upon its 1992 release - it has the same effect on me now: the hair prickles on the back of my neck, goosebumps raise on my arms and I have a difficult time breathing...

Listening to Tori's a cappella rendering of a rape at gunpoint makes me hope I am never in that situation - the fear, shock and numbness is palpable in her whispered vocals, cracking at times, as she tries to envision the island of Barbados and soft biscuits in Carolina, anything to escape in her head what is happening to her body...

The song is based on a true story - Tori later went on to found RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network), a non-profit organization operating America's only national hotline for survivors of rape and sexual assault. The RAINN hotline is toll-free and 100% confidential. RAINN has helped more than 276,300 survivors and connects with more than 830 crisis centers around the country.

Tori's Survivor Story

"I'll never talk about it at this level again but let me ask you. Why have I survived that kind of night, when other women didn't?

How am I alive to tell you this tale when he was ready to slice me up? In the song I say it was Me and a Gun but it wasn't a gun. It was a knife he had. And the idea was to take me to his friends and cut me up, and he kept telling me that, for hours. And if he hadn't needed more drugs I would have been just one more news report, where you see the parents grieving for their daughter. And I was singing hymns, as I say in the song, because he told me to. I sang to stay alive. Yet I survived that torture, which left me urinating all over myself and left me paralyzed for years. That's what that night was all about, mutilation, more than violation through sex.

I really do feel as though I was psychologically mutilated that night and that now I'm trying to put the pieces back together again. Through love, not hatred. And through my music. My strength has been to open again, to life, and my victory is the fact that, despite it all, I kept alive my vulnerability."

Domestic Violence and Sexual Abuse: Run For Your Life

The Beatles: Run For Your Life

[purchase]

This week's theme finds our hardy band here at Star Maker Machine turning to a serious topic in recognition of Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Posts will likely run the gamut from victimizer and victim's voices to tales of acceptance, regret, looking the other way, fighting back and more.

A quick perusal of my own music library finds this to be a rich subject, which speaks volumes about how much this issue remains a serious and necessary pursuit. As evidence of how ingrained our cultural acceptance of violence has become, we kick off the week with a familiar, cheerful little ditty in which the narrator - a "wicked guy" with a "jealous mind" - makes no secret of how he will respond if he catches his girl with another man.

Donations to the cause can be made to your local YWCA or any one of these violence against women organizations. More importantly: if you think domestic violence is happening in your home or neighborhood, now is the time to speak up by calling the police, or the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233.

Title Tracks: Anyway

Amy Farris: Anyway

[purchase]

The perfect combination of Spector-era girl group harmonies and echoey Neko Case production on this obscure title track come courtesy of Dave Alvin, who produced Austin-born singer-songwriter Amy Farris' debut and only album in 2004, and more recently brought the underrated fiddler and vocalist on tour as part of his new band Guilty Women. The talent, however, is all Amy.

Farris, who was also known for her work in the studio and on tour with Bruce Robison, Kelly Willis, and Dave Alvin and Exene Cervenka of 80s americana punk band X, died Tuesday of an apparent suicide at the age of 40. If there is indeed great Texas music in heaven - and I believe there is - as of this week they've got a great fiddle player in the band.

Title Tracks: Hearts & Bones

Paul Simon: Hearts and Bones

[product]

I will forever associate this song and its album with the arc of a particular love affair, specifically the girl I dated through my last years of high school, an exotic, sensual, tiny and sweet free-spirited child of mixed-race divorce who at fourteen showed me the burning intensity of life for the first time. Our theme song was Song About the Moon, an equally gorgeous lullaby, but this title song from the album she kept on her stereo describes everything I was feeling at the time, from our "love like lightning shaking to moans" to the constant mischievous immediacy she tried, and ultimately failed, to convince me was the way I wanted to live my life, though I will always love her for it in my memory.

In many ways, Hearts and Bones is Paul Simon's most flawed album, with a few embarrassing clunkers in the mix, the whole product yawing too-wide through a set of songs about half of which stand better on their own than in the midst of the discomforting chaos that is the track-to-track listing. Yet in its own way, it is also terribly underrated, containing echoes of what came before and what was to come, as are the young loves who brought us to ourselves. I miss both girl and album every day, though I'd not trade either in a million years for what and who we have all - Simon, myself, and the girl, who is now a distant memory - moved on to become.

As a bonus, here's the sweetest cover of this song I know - equally poignant, though in a simpler, more wistful way.

Aoife O'Donovan: Hearts and Bones

[unpurchaseable]

Title Tracks: Hejira

Joni Mitchell: Hejira

[purchase]

Joni Mitchell: Hejira (the Travelogue version)

[purchase]

I helped start up and have maintained a monthly book discussion group, with seven amazing women friends... and last month marked the beginning of our ninth year together - at our recent gathering, one of our members brought up the following quote: "When you read a classic, you do not see more in the book than you did before; you see more in you than there was before." Clifton Fadiman.

I, of course, immediately related it to music in my life - there are some songs that, upon release, I just don't *get* and discover that, decades later, I can eventually relate. I realize that the glitch is not with them, it's with me - the wisdom has always been there, but it's taken time for me to grow into it... or to benefit from the always-been-there lesson...

Such was absolutely the case with the title track to Hejira, the album Joni released in 1976 (I had just graduated from college) - I was enamored with Confessional Singer-Songwriter Joni, and had tolerated The Hissing of Summer Lawns, thinking it was an experimental blip on her musical radar screen. Imagine my shock when she went even farther afield from the girl-and-her-guitar scenario - I tried to relate to the words... but that d*mn thrumming bass of Jaco Pastorius kept getting in the way (blasphemy, I know!). I continued to buy each of her albums as they were released... but I was not happy - where was the Joni I knew and loved?

Fast forward to 2002, when she put out Travelogue, a two-disc reworking of many of her standards, with orchestral backing - twenty-five years later, the song finally elicited the Proverbial Light Bulb Moment. I don't know if it was her deeper, aging, world-weary voice... or the swelling string section... or the fact that I was married/had children/experienced the melancholy of feeling lonely within the context of a relationship... or a combination of the three - all I *do* know is that the barrier vaporized and I finally *heard* the song with the intention in which it was written...

"You know it never has been easy
Whether you do or you do not resign
Whether you travel the breadth of extremities
Or stick to some straighter line..."

Thanks, Joni, for allowing me a second chance... and for being a wise and patient traveling companion all these many years - the musical journey continues...

Title Tracks: The Drugs I Need

Austin Lounge Lizards: The Drugs I Need

[purchase]

As a regular reader of this blog I thought that if I were a contributor, this might have been my selection for the Drugs theme. We have all seen the commercials..take this to cure that, but watch out for those side effects.Trouble is, sometimes the treatment may seem worse than the illness. Take for example the wonder drug Progenitorivox (at your own risk,of course). This cure all is brought to you by the Austin Lounge Lizards. If symptoms persist, call your doctor.

Title Tracks: Essence

Lucinda Williams: Essence

[purchase]

This is one of my favorite Lucinda Williams tracks, but it's also one that I can never play when I'm on the radio due to the potential for massive fines from the FCC should I do so. For that reason, I am more than glad to share it with you here.

Simply put, the song "Essence" is little more than lust given life in the form of a song. When Lucinda cries out for her "Sweet Baby," you can hear the yearning in her voice. Her desperation has overtaken her to the point that she is no longer in control. When she speaks of love as a drug, it's not a hyperbole or figure of speech. She is addicted.

It's a powerful song made even more so by Lucinda's ability to wring every ounce of emotion out of every breathy note she sings.

Title Tracks: God Shuffled His Feet

Crash Test Dummies: God Shuffled His Feet

[purchase]

God created man in His own image, and set him loose in the world. After a while, He had a picnic, to see how His creation had fared, and to take questions. Beyond human emotions, He was bemused.

That is the premise of the song, God Shuffled His Feet. It leads off an album of wonderfully eccentric story telling, with a rich palette of musical colors to enhance the experience.