Metal Heart, Cat Power

Number 2 off my Personal Canon of Music -

Very, very often I think to myself: chin up old girl, quit feeling sorry for yourself, there’s only so many times one can lie in bed and listen to Metal Heart – but the truth is: no, there isn’t. In fact Metal Heart makes feeling sorry for yourself into a downright artform. It only gets better with time. That brooding guitar intro, all gray and blue like storm clouds*. Those too-true-to-be-true lyrics. It’s not an easy song, and it takes you through some heavy (and chorus-less) shit, but beneath all those layers of metal is a deep and tenacious beauty and at the end you arrive at something that feels like catharsis. As much as I like Cat Power’s other stuff, this one is definitely my favourite.



*Vladimir Nabokov’s mother saw music in terms of colour and I do that too. Nabokov himself saw letters (and subsequently, words) in colours and I also do that, but not as much as he did.