Ani DiFranco Appreciation Club Meeting #3: She’s So Gay
Ani DiFranco Appreciation Club is an all-inclusive space devoted to the appreciation and discussion of Ani DiFranco’s music. Meetings are open to anyone with a love of Ani DiFranco; new members welcome. We strongly encourage everyone to buy Ani’s music and not download it illegally, please.
Hello! And welcome everyone to the first Ani DiFranco Appreciation Club meeting of the new year! It makes us smile just to dream of it, how have you been? We’re excited to see so many familiar faces, and if this is your first meeting, welcome! Please take a moment to sign the attendance sheet in the comments. Is there a volunteer to take the minutes? Excellent, thank you wallow14. Vegan, gluten-free cookies and soymilk are available at the snack table by the door, please remember to compost your soiled paper products when you’re finished with them. Now we’ll just wait for everyone to settle down and we can begin.
How many of you are here with your same-sex partners, show of hands. Mm. I see several of you are sporting undercut hairstyles, and I think I see at leeeeaaast one pair of suspenders in the back. Don’t be embarrassed, they’re lovely. Everyone please take a moment to look around the room and note the abundance of queer and queer-allied persons. This is no coincidence. Have you ever stood in line for an Ani show? Probably half the lesbians in your town were there. Probably before you even went inside somebody said to somebody, “Omg she’s here; she’s here with her new girlfriend kill me DON’T LOOK SHE’LL KNOW WE’RE TALKING ABOUT HER fuck I hope we don’t end up standing next to them.” Which brings us to the focus of today’s meeting: Ani’s Gayest Songs.
What’s interesting is that Ani doesn’t have that many “gay” songs, you know? She references being with girls on just a handful of songs released in the early and mid-90s, which isn’t very much considering her vast repertoire.
But, as we’ve mentioned before, Ani writes about love/relationships/emotions the way nobody else can, so people of all orientations can relate to her music. She’s also always been a champion for fringe-y types – feminists, queers, lefties, activists, DIYers, artists, shit-disturbers – so it makes sense that she has a huge gay following. We love her because she gets us. She also wrote “I am thinking of her fingers as I walk” in like 1991 and cemented lesbian attendance at her shows for the rest of her life.
And here we are all today. Talking about Ani being Gay!
She Says (Not So Soft, 1991 / Like I Said, 1993)
BUY ON ITUNES
Riese: It’s sad when you know a person could love the fuck out of your stupid shit and you just can’t. Maybe someday, maybe somehow you’ll be ready to be LOVED BY A LADY but just not now while my insides are so effed.
bcw: Everytime it rains in the city I get this song in my head. Even the guitar sounds like rain falling.
Please try not to love me. You know I have no vacancy.
In or Out (Imperfectly, 1992)
BUY ON ITUNES
Riese: This song was the epigraph for that book I never finished writing about bisexuality. The lyrics give you permission to be pissed off that somebody wants to put you up on any shelf, and I liked that she was independent and came alone/left by herself. Like it was ANI FIRST and LABELS SECOND. I feel this song would be an excellent anthem for the YOU DO YOU movement.
bcw: Imperfectly is arguably Ani’s gayest record, and was the first record of hers I ever heard. This record made me realize I was gay, there is no doubt about it. And ‘In or Out’ was the song that did it, probably because it occurs early on the album. But I also identified as bi when I first came out, and I don’t know, to my 15-year-old self, the lines about stripes and spots and not ordering the same thing at the restaurant were like, life-altering. I immediately learned how to play it on acoustic guitar and did so constantly in front of the mirror in my bedroom.
The Whole Night (Not So Soft, 1991)
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bcw: I was never suuuuper into this song, honestly. I found it a bit cheesy, and it always annoyed me the way she sang “the who-o-ole niiiiight.” It’s cute though. It’s a cute song. People like it. It’s about girls kissing and thinking about each other’s fingers.
Riese: “The Whole Night” is a story of heartache and yearning and impossible desire but the song sounds plucky & happy & free and the language is so light, too. It’s hopeful/scheming. It planted lyrics in my head but they didn’t “flower,” so to speak, ’til maybe a decade later.
I literally feel like I wrote this song. Like, word-for-word. I have held hands like paper dolls, we have tried each other on in the privacy within New York City’s walls, and we’ve kissed our girl cheeks and we went home thinking what it would be like if she or I did not have a boyfriend and we could spend the whole night.
Also, I am thinking of her fingers as I walk — thank you Ani DiFranco for writing that line, god bless you.
Little Plastic Castle (Little Plastic Castle, 1998)
BUY ON ITUNES
bcw: This song meant so much to me not only because it marked a musical departure for her that blew my tiny mind, but also because of that line about that girl being the cutest. This song makes me think of sunbeams breaking in and early morning road trip coffee and frosty windshields. It has a pretty fun little bassline, too. I think this incarnation of her band – with Andy Stochansky and Sara Lee – is still my favourite.
riese: This is gay because there’s that part where they go into the coffee shop and despite how fucking cute your girlfriend is, you can’t kiss her because you might possible be among ‘phobes. You never know.
bcw: Also it has that GIRL POLICE line that we’ll probably address in another post. This song has everything. It’s a good-time song.
riese: “AA Club #4: ani difranco is trying to break your attitude about her outfits/lovers”
If It Isn’t Her (Imperfectly, 1992)
BUY ON ITUNES
Riese: I have playlists, folders, emails, everything —> titled “a girl-girl thing.” If I ever get married/commitmentceremonied, I want “this is a girl-girl thing” to be on my wedding invitations instead of the word “wedding.”
You’re going to throw stones at me and desecrate my website for saying this — but IN MY EXPERIENCE, falling in love with a girl has a special feeling to it that falling in love with a guy doesn’t quite match. It’s not even a gay thing, I think heterosexual men feel the same way. Because girls are so giant and complicated and tangled up in these heart-shaped soft bits of desire and mystery and wanting and stuff. And then there’s nothing else in the world but Her, you know?
bcw: God this record was gay. I listened to this album non-stop on my SONY DISCMAN (I couldn’t afford that fancy anti-skip Panasonic Shockwave) on the OC Transpo to and from high school for what feels like a year but was probably a period of two months or so circa 1998. I didn’t listen to any other albums at that time, just Imperfectly. I have vivid memories of staring out the bus window at that big hill at Hurdman station, listening to her sing about it being a girl-girl thing and feeling like my whole self made sense suddenly but was also still a super-scary secret that only Ani understood. I always loved the line “my imagination is rattling its cage.” Imperfectly changed my life, it really did.
Shameless (Dilate, 1996)
BUY ON ITUNES
Riese: I don’t know what I said last time, but I can’t say anything about this song without saying everything. TOO MANY FEELINGS
bcw: We covered this song at our first meeting, but it’s her Big Gay Anthem so we can’t exclude it. How do you get into a room if it doesn’t have a door? Unresolved. No but seriously I read this “Unauthorized Biography” of Ani DiFranco at one point many years ago (I’m pretty sure I’m the only person on planet Earth who has read this) and she talked about how one day, early on, she looked out at the crowd and it was all babydykes with shaved heads and overalls and she was like, ‘How did this happen?’ and then I think she started playing ‘Shameless’ less at shows? I don’t know but I always felt a bit weird about that, like why did it matter that it was all lesbians. Did anybody else read that book or am I for real the only one.
Two Little Girls (Little Plastic Castle, 1998)
BUY ON ITUNES
Riese: This experience is just making me realize how often I’ve co-opted Ani lyrics for email subject headers, blog titles and (once upon a time) myspace headlines. From this song I snatched (har) “this little girl breaks furniture/this little girl breaks laws.”
You’re the one who knows what’s up, who knows who she is/was and what she needs, the parts of her that the other girl co-opted for herself and pumped with drugs/destruction and you’re the one who will be there to call 911 and you’re the one who lightens the mood with your jokes or furrows your brow — you are all of these things, effortlessly, and you feel confused as to why the world isn’t paying you back for being all those things.
bcw: I want to hear what Rachel has to say about this song because at our first meeting she implied she had a lot of feelings. Rachel, you have the floor.
Both Hands (Ani DiFranco, 1990 / Like I Said, 1993)
BUY ON ITUNES
bcw: I think this song is pretty gay. Riese doesn’t. Not that it’s about a girl necessarily, but ‘gay’ in the sense that it’s beloved by gays. I don’t know, it’s one of Ani’s many, MANY, it-could-be-about-anything-because-it’s-about-feelings songs but I challenge you to find me a lesbian guitarist who doesn’t know how to play this. BOTH HANDS NOW USE BOTH HANDS. Gay.
Riese: I would actually say that the sexuality of this song is fluid. I would say it is going with the flow. Because when I first heard this song I was watching a male chest rise and fall and now I watch a female chest rise and fall. It’s bisexual, just like Ani DiFranco. Also you may or may not be able to email me at iusebothhands at gmail dot com, but I definitely won’t write back.
bcw: It has universal gay straight bi queerio queer queer weirdo feelingsy appeal just like Ani and it can be ‘claimed’ only insofar as we all claim each other.
Riese: Ultimately in the end all we really have are our big gay feelings and our handsy acoustic guitars.
What are your thoughts? Did we miss anything super important to your gay self-actualization? Are you SO INSULTED by something in this post? Tell us all your gay feelings about Ani in the comments!
Ani DiFranco Appreciation Club Meeting #2: Ani DiFranco Is Trying to Break Your Heart
Ani DiFranco Appreciation Club is an all-inclusive, safe space devoted to the appreciation and discussion of Ani DiFranco’s music. Meetings are open to anyone with a love of Ani DiFranco; new members welcome. Please sign the attendance sheet in the comments. We also encourage everyone to buy Ani’s music and not download it illegally, please.
Ani DiFranco is trying to break your heart. Actually, she’s probably already succeeded a bunch of times, which is why you’re here. Because that’s what’s so special about Ani’s music: although she’s never been popular in the mainstream or gained much radio play, she’s cultivated legions of fans through the raw power of her lyrics and her ability to write something so heart-wrenchingly true to your own experience that it makes you feel like SHE KNOWS YOU.
It’s that deep connection, that feeling of relating so completely that makes our love for her so deep and red.
Ani DiFranco Appreciation Club Meeting #1: Now More Than Ever
by riese & bcw
We’re gonna talk about Ani DiFranco for a quick minute here.
Lesbians tend to have a lot of feelings about Ani DiFranco. Lots and lots of feelings. I’m having about six different feelings right now just writing this.
This is the first of what will be a multi-part feature devoted to the examination and appreciation of one Angela Maria DiFranco and her exhaustive contribution to the world of music and capital-F feelings.
You see, here at Autostraddle, some of us have a very deep, passionate love for Ani DiFranco and we know that some of you do, too. In fact, we (Riese and bcw) have so much love for Ani DiFranco that we can no longer do her justice via private conversations. We all need a little Ani-infused group therapy. A place to talk about how Dilate ripped our hearts out or how Imperfectly made us gay. A space reserved for us to collectively wonder what the hell she was thinking when she recorded that song “Swing” and if “Revelling” is about friendship or a love affair or both.
And you know what? If you don’t like or “get” Ani Difranco, that’s fine. But this is an Ani DiFranco APPRECIATION Club, not an Ani DiFranco Haters Club. Keep that in mind, commenters.
Because I’m gonna say something right now and I’m only gonna say it once: I am SO OVER lesbians (and other people) saying that they’re SO OVER Ani DiFranco. I get it, I do – many of us have gone through an Ani-discovery phase wherein we listened to her music ad nauseum and identified with every perfectly-chosen metaphor that she employed.
“She’s Ani Fucking DiFranco. Show some respect. She started her own record company (at 19, I might add) and has churned out an album a year for the last 500 years, plus side projects.”
Most of us have probably at some point felt at least somewhat stripped bare by her uncanny ability to put into words exactly what it is we’re feeling, better than we ever could, (making us go, “I never heard it put that way,” making us say, “what did you just say?”) and maybe now we’re not exactly there anymore. We can’t be tormented fifteen-year-old baby dykes forever, after all.
But dammit, she’s Ani Fucking DiFranco. Show some respect. She started her own record company (at 19, I might add) and has churned out an album a year for the last 500 years, plus side projects. She told Letterman she’d only do his show on the condition that she could play “Subdivision” and refused the invite when they told her no. She INVENTED THE PIANO KEY NECKTIE, for crying out loud. Okay not that last one. But she was there – with her weirdly-long right-hand fingernails, her shorn/colored/dreaded/wavy/shorn/wavy hair, her too-many double live albums, her impossibly-titled Up Up Up Up Up Up, her Andy Stochanskys and her Julie Wolfs and her Todd Sickafooses and her Maceo Parkers, her enough-already jazzy jam band phase post-To The Teeth, and her HUGE ASS BALLS – right when you needed her. And she’s still there today.
For some of us, Ani’s music has shaped who we are; changed the way we write, the way we think, the way we sing along, the way we lose love and the ways we get it back. We love her with the burning fire of a thousand suns and nobody can tell us otherwise. AND WE WANT YOU TO LOVE HER TOO. Because you’re worth it.
To kick things off — and to maybe get a few of you on board who are scratching your heads right now — we’re going to give you a quick rundown of some songs that just about everybody knows and/or loves. The bare essentials, if you will (and trust, we had a really hard time paring this list down). These are the songs that, if you don’t know them yet, you should probably hear before you try and hit on that cute girl with the dreads or the nose ring. Your mom has probably heard at least one of these songs. Get with the program. We love you, we want you to be better.
(Editor’s note: we wanted to link to the original album recordings of songs and in some cases the accompanying videos are a little bit random/awesome. Enjoy.)
32 Flavors (Not a Pretty Girl, 1995)
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bcw: I first heard this song covered by Alana Davis on the first release of the unfortunately-titled Canadian compilation album series “Women and Songs.” I thought it was brilliant, and when I read in the liner notes that it was actually Ani’s (and heard her much-better version) I fell in love.
Riese: I literally cannot listen to this song without thinking about Baskin-Robbins. All I hear is “Fuck you Baskin Robbins, where’s my Feminist Flava,” over & over again. The Alana Davis cover gave me vadge-rage for months because people said they loved it and I said YOU SHOULD SAVE YOUR LOVE FOR ANI.
You Had Time (Out of Range, 1994)
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Riese: Back in 2000, Fox aired a fantastic, critically adored yet short-lived documentary series called American High. The producers gave video cameras to ~15 high school students in suburban Chicago and it was so authentic and perfect and revelatory and honest that it obviously got canceled mid-season. The point is that I’d always liked this song, but when Ally drove home in her junky car listening to “You Had Time” on her car radio, probs from a mix tape — literally GOING HOME WITH NOTHING TO SAY AT THE TIME — it wedged itself under my ribs and is my “most played” Ani song on itunes. It’s how “artists” feel going home. Right?
bcw: Not sure what needs to be said here, other than GAAAHHHHHHHHCRYCRYCRY and don’t bother watching Lost and Delirious because it sucks (but was filmed at Bishops!)
Untouchable Face (Dilate, 1996)
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bcw: Who hasn’t been there? Anyone? Really? You’re lying. The only thing I can think of saying is “fuck you.”
Riese: That’s what she said. Also: yes. Everyone knows this one.
Both Hands (Like I Said, 1994)
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Riese: Remember when Kim who everyone had a crush on played Both Hands at our arts boarding school’s open mic night and she introduced it by saying it was Ani DiFranco’s best song and therefore it became Ani DiFranco’s best song? That was hot.
bcw: Remember when she had the Buffalo Symphony accompany her on this song? On like Living in Clip? I thought that must’ve been so weird for the musicians. But also like, holy crap, she’s got a SYMPHONY with her. Respect.
Shameless (Dilate, 1996)
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bcw: This is arguably the official Ani DiFranco queer girl anthem (though there are many – more on that later). I say this because I think I remember hearing an obscure live recording of this once and hearing all the dykes in the crowd cheer when she said the word “wife.” If you are a lesbian and you have not heard this song, stop everything you’re doing and listen to it right now. And think about that neighbor’s wife you’re coveting / coveted when there was too much drama.
Riese: I actually think the fact that it’s another “man’s” wife is incidental and it’s just about the velocity of an unstoppable sex/like thing with a person you can’t/shouldn’t “have” because they are taken but you’ve moved past “wrong/right” “explaining” “naming” or “shaming” into “they are going to be mad at us” because there is absolutely no fucking way you can stop THIS.
Back in the day, I had “we’re in a room without a door” as my “headline” on myspace and someone posted on my wall “then how did you get in?”
Regardless, listen to it right now and think about that neighbor’s wife you’re coveting.
(ETA: Now that I am listening to it as a “lesbian anthem,” I realize that bcw is probs totally right but I don’t care, that’s the beauty of Ani.)
Gravel (Little Plastic Castle, 1998)
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bcw: See, I’ve always thought this song was about a woman, but that’s probably because I was going through a big Indigo Girls phase at the time I first heard it. I don’t know, I just always imagined a middle-aged butch on her motorcycle pulling up to Ani’s house. I guess it’s probably not about a woman, which really doesn’t matter anyway. This song is about loving/hating/hating loving someone; I think a lot of us have been there / are there. Full disclosure: I used to play it in coffeehouses.
Riese: I like it when Ani gets angry about being sad/powerless, it gives you a reason to scream instead of cry or something.
Little Plastic Castle (Little Plastic Castle, 1998)
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Riese: Little Plastic Castle was the first Ani album I bought in a store the day it came out, as I’d been catching up for most years prior. Whenever you people yell at me in the comments, I want to yell SOMEONE CALL THE GIRL POLICE AND FILE A REPORT.
bcw: I used to wake up to this song every morning one summer when I was 16 years old, working in the kitchen at a summer camp. I thought the lines about the girl with the shaved head being the cutest and about the competition to see who could be the rudest and about the girl police were pretty much perfect, and it was the first time I heard her employ brass instruments in her music. When I heard that I remember thinking, “imagine what else she’s going to come up with.”
Riese: If someone ever says “look at you this morning, you are by far the cutest” to you, then you should probably kiss them right then and there. Or later, if the people might want to shoot you.
Not A Pretty Girl (Not A Pretty Girl, 1995)
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Riese: This was like, mid-90’s, driving in your stickshift beat-up second-hand Volvo, intentionally looking as ‘not pretty’ as you can via the wonders of mid-90’s “alternative” culture/style and smoking American Spirits and feeling like you can beat people up. But now it’s a whole new song to me as a grown-up “working artist” — “generally my generation wouldn’t be caught dead working for the man, but trouble is you gotta have yourself an alternate plan”? Word.
bcw: This song was, in some ways, one of my first feminist anthems. “Imagine you’re a girl just trying to finally come clean / Knowing full well they’d prefer you were dirty and smiling?” I mean come ON. That whole album is amazing – I think one of her all-around strongest. I can still put that album on today and let it play all the way through without feeling compelled to skip a track. Well maybe “The Million You Never Made” if I’m in mixed company.
Dilate (Dilate, 1996)
Riese: These lyrics are hands down totes the most apt description of a certain feeling than anything else ever written in the history of mankind and the English language AND I WILL THEREFORE PASTE SOME OF THE BEST LINES RIGHT HERE:
You are so lame
you always disappoint me
it’s kinda like our running joke
but it’s really not funny
I see you and I’m so unsatisfied
I see you and I dilate….
so i’ll walk the plank and i’ll jump with a smile
if i’m gonna go down
i’m gonna do it with style
and you won’t see me surrender
you won’t hear me confess
‘cuz you’ve left me with nothing
but i’ve worked with less
and i learn every room long enough
to make it to the door
and then i hear it click shut behind me
and every key works differently
i forget every time
and the forgetting defines me
that’s what defines me
when i say you sucked my brain out
the english translation
is i am in love with you
and it is no fun
If I had a penny for every time I thought “I just want you to live up to the image of you I create” I would be a bajillionaire. BAJILLIONS I TELL YOU.
bcw: It took me a little while to fully appreciate the beauty of the “sucked my brain out” line but once I got there, hoooo. The first few bars of this song always hit me like a punch to the solar plexus. Sometimes I have to skip it because shit gets too real.
Keep in mind, these are just songs that we personally think count among/are perceived as the “classics” – they’re not necessarily our all-time favorites.
We’ve got at least 5-10 more Ani Appreciation Club posts planned on a variety of topics, so sit tight. There will be juice and cookies next time!
