Sleater-Kinney's modern blues about a mother pleading for the health and life of a sick child is something I can relate to on a personal level. My mother-in-law was severely injured in a car accident five years ago so I know what Corin Tucker feels like when she sings
I don’t like the doctor with the deep long face
Only wants to give us the very worst case
The story is very much told from a female point of view but Tucker's gift is telling the story in such a way that even an insensitive male lout can understand and identify with.
We're all equal in the face of what we're most afraid of
And I'm so sorry for those who didn't make it
And for the mommies who are left with their heart breaking
The powerful, personal lyrics require either understated musical support or one powerful enough to match. What they get is Janet Weiss' powerful, yet precise drumming ,which captures the sound and timing of Ringo Starr's later sixties work, aided by a few technical licks that Ringo lacked, and a bluesy lick supplied by Carrie Brownstein that sounds like the ground is rumbling beneath Corin's best vocal performance, which comes across as an unlikely amalglam of Aretha Franklin, Dolly Parton and P. J. Harvey. And the "woo-woo" backup vocals, lifted straight from the Rolling Stones' "Sympathy For The Devil", offer the same promise that group harmonizing always does: support, faith and well, sympathy.
Lyrics copyright Sleater-Kinney 2002
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