My Word's Worth: a weekly column by Marylaine Block

vol.3, #43, April 27, 1998

THE WOMAN FROM F.I.B.S.

You know, when you go to some concerts, it's an Event--you expect a deafening sound system, pounding music, intense theatricality, perhaps a sound and light show. At a They Might Be Giants concert, you expect to be part of the action, because at the very least you'll be asked to join a conga line. But I have an idea that going to one of Christine Lavin's concerts would be very much like having a friend welcome you to her living room.

Christine is a songwriter/singer with a sweet light soprano and a folkish sound, who speaks to us with warmth and intimacy, as if beginning a conversation. Her song, "The Sixth Floor," has the feel of someone saying, "You know, I was visiting the museum they built on the sixth floor of the Texas Book Depository, and I've got to tell you about the memories it brought back." To follow her work across several albums is to feel that you know her well, with all her quirks and pet peeves and kindnesses. Because, over time, you cannot successfully carry off a lie--your words and concerns form a pattern, reveal a whole consistent personality.

What do her songs tell us about her? That she is bright and funny, and wields a deftly satirical needle. Her targets are wide-ranging, including trendy people ("Nobody's Fat in Aspen"), Tina Turner and Don King ("Prisoners of their Hairdos"), and such phenomena of modern life as 1-900-psychics, Seinfeld, and thirtyish women's nervousness about that biological time clock.

While she obviously likes and understands men, some of them drive her crazy, like the ones who find a serious relationship unbearably constricting ("If You Want Space, Go To Utah"), and sacrifice perfectly good loving women who are right there in front of them, on the altar of imagined perfection:

He falls in love with covers of slick magazines
With serious actresses on the screen
All are unattainable except in his dreams
Where his heart and his soul reside.
For he is afraid of attainable love
Afraid it will envelop him and swallow him up
All of his life he has resisted the tug
Of attainable love, attainable love

It's also pretty clear that she likes her men to be the old-fashioned, manly sort; at least she has a lot of fun with "Sensitive New Age Guys": "Who believes us when we say we have premenstrual syndrome? Who doesn't know who plays in the Seattle Kingdome?" (Bet you didn't think there WAS a rhyme for that.)

Some of her men are very appealing. In one of her songs, a man and woman are in the Louvre, due to go to the airport in 25 minutes, and he insists that she must see the Mona Lisa. They race through the Louvre, and with moments to spare, find the painting. She is saying, OK, yep, that's it, can we go now? But he won't let her. He forces her to stand still and look at it while he slowly counts to 25: "un, deux, trois, quatre..." In another song, she sings about all the things she does with him that she doesn't much enjoy ("I am eating sushi, when I do not like sushi, but he loves sushi, and I love him"). Her tone is amused, not begrudging. She doesn't mind a bit, even though she thinks "eating sushi is like chewing on your own cheek, or sucking down a bucketful of tentacled slime," because

Before I met him life was dull
I never took any chances
Now I leap at every opportunity I find
I do not like sushi
I do not like skiing or the opera.
Maybe I will in time.

Her curiosity about almost everything and everyone is apparent in her songs, which are full of character sketches--of bag ladies and bus drivers and beachcombers--and of special moments captured in time, like the ice skaters pictured in the museum in "As Close To Flying." You can feel her joy in life, and her sadness at its waste. She knows all about how unlikely it is for two people to find and keep each other, how easy it is to miss connections, how often we could have said "I admire you," or "You mean a lot to me," but didn't, because "The Moment Slipped Away."

What she seems extraordinarily good at is friendship. She's a woman you'd like beside you when the love of your life is suddenly gone, a woman who seems to be sitting beside you holding your hand when she sings "This is as bad as it gets/If you can make it through this, I'm willing to bet/that you can make it through anything the world will throw your way." Unlike you, she seems utterly confident you DO have the strength to make it through this. And though it may seem a bit hard-hearted, she reminds you,

How can she say, she's lost without him?
He's not a compass; he never was.
How can she say, Life has no meaning?
Life meant something before he came along. It still does.

Good friend that she is, Christine has nurtured the careers of a number of other women. Several of them have been part of Christine's group, Four Bitchin' Babes, and judging from their live albums, they put on quite a show. Each of them is an excellent singer, and they all get a couple of solo turns, doing doo wops for each other in between. The rapport between the four of them, and with their listeners, is obvious, as they tease each other and take suggestions for song topics from the audience.

Her niceness never gets soupy--she notices too much, and can't resist pointing out our little foibles. Even when she proposes a "National Apology Day," when we all should telephone people we've offended and say we're sorry, she has some pointed words of advice for both Bill Clinton AND Paula Jones. Not only would a day of apology be the right thing for all of us to do, she says, but it would have this happy effect:

you can kiss good-bye
any long-standing grudges
we'll have less need for therapists
lawyers, cops and judges

If you visit the Christine Lavin home page to find out more about her albums, do take a moment to read her bio. She claims perpetual membership in the FIBS Club (Fickle Independent Bitch Society), and points out that you too may be a member and not realize it. This is how I discovered that I am a woman from FIBS myself. And I couldn't be more pleased about the company I'm keeping.

NOTE: My thinking is always a work in progress. You could mentally insert all my columns in between these two sentences: "This is something I've been thinking about," and "Does this make any sense to you?" I welcome your thoughts. Please send your comments about these columns to: marylaine at netexpress.net. Since I've written a lot of these, some of them many years ago, help me out by telling me which column you're referring to.

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