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11 May 2013

Otherwordly female drifters in 70's rock songs ... →[More:]When I listen to many rock songs from the seventies, there's a general recurring motif I detect that, in its purest form, might be described as a sexually voracious female drifter who washes up into the narrator's life causing him a great deal of pain but leaving him longing for her on some level after she's gone. I imagine a long-haired, headstrong, slender woman in a halter top who is sexually uninhibited but also suffering from something akin to borderline personality disorder. Intertwined with this depiction is a kind of background milieu of casual sex or low-commitment encounters.

Dylan's 1966 song "Just Like a Woman" may be considered a major template for this kind of song, but I'm really not thinking of artists as hallowed as Dylan ... I have the feeling that this type of depiction is everywhere in seventies music.

What's interesting to me about this motif is that, while it can be described as misogynistic, it often seems to reflect a grudging respect for the woman's headstrong nature and raw sexual power. I just don't see this type of woman in today's contemporary music. I've wondered whether this motif is reflective of the concept of women's liberation ... Perhaps at that time there were lots of women flitting in and out of men's lives (or rock musician's lives), in a way that made them worthy of depiction in songs?

So ... Have any of you noticed this motif?

post by: jayder at: 10:01 | 10 comments

This was a recognized meme. I have a hazy recollection of a Rolling Stone article on Dylan (an interview?) but that may be only post-suggestive. The Eagles' "Take It Easy" was meant to satirize the idea.

posted by Ardiril 11 May | 10:52

Interesting.

Wikipedia says there's a park, statue and trompe-l'oeil mural in Winslow, Arizona memorializing the woman in the flatbed Ford slowing down to take a look at the narrator.

posted by jayder 11 May | 12:46

I went there with my mom. She does a hilarious version of the song since she has never actually heard it. She just read the lyrics in the statue and made up her own tune.

posted by maritacov 11 May | 13:47

. I imagine a long-haired, headstrong, slender woman in a halter top who is sexually uninhibited but also suffering from something akin to borderline personality disorder.

LOL. Well put.

Perhaps at that time there were lots of women flitting in and out of men's lives (or rock musician's lives), in a way that made them worthy of depiction in songs?

Well, I think that's absolutely the case. The songs are probably in part men's fantasies, but it's also true that this was an era of sexual liberation (for everybody), people delaying parenthood, the largest generation of young people ever. So of course musicians did meet a lot of independent young women who were seeking excitement. At the same time, I think these songs are actually calculated to appeal in part to women. These weren't the teenage beauty queen songs of the 50s or even the Motown kitten songs of the 60s. They celebrated a female profile that was actually becoming more common, and I think women enjoyed the songs too.

I took a picture of myself leaning against the Route 66 sign on a corner in Winslow, AZ.

Rock on, Gold Dust Woman.

posted by Miko 11 May | 20:16

I thought Sheryl Crow was basically that woman (as her rock persona at least), though I'm just basing this on that one Winding Road song.

I think about the 70s a lot even though I was only a child for them. They seem pretty misogynistic, the vibe of sleazeballs pretending to be artistic souls just to get girls, and sort of openly gloating about it seems to run through a lot of things. I feel like that's part of the broader kind of amoral 70s philosophy that everything's a scam and there's only the suckers and the grifters, that needs to be understood as the deepest truth, but along with that is the idea that it's the beautiful grifters who had the magic.

posted by fleacircus 11 May | 21:05

. I imagine a long-haired, headstrong, slender woman in a halter top who is sexually uninhibited but also suffering from something akin to borderline personality disorder
This sounds exactly like the '70s I remember watching everyone else have ;-)

I think when people think of the 60's and all the free love etc, its really the 70s they are thinking of, which were much more like the 60s that the 60s really were.

posted by dg 12 May | 07:01

Wake up Maggie, I think I got something to say to you...

posted by serena 13 May | 15:59

Also, Rhiannon...

posted by serena 13 May | 16:00

This kind of ties into the "evil woman" meme which was also big at the time. I think these songs are about the same women, but after they've left/dumped the guy. There are at least three songs from the 70's with that specific tile (ELO, Doobie Bros and Black Sabbath), not to mention Black Magic Woman and Witchy Woman.

posted by doctor_negative 13 May | 17:01

It's easy to throw labels around. When you are in your teens, early twenties, you run with the paradigms you were invested with in grammar school. The ghosts of the Cleavers haunted the 60's and 70's.

Sex, Drugs, Rock and Roll. Liberation: social, sexual, personal. But then, what goes there?

Okay, wet dreams: Frazetta's nymphs, like Warrior princesses. Or Earth Mothers who like to fuck on top, and don't really care to become your concubine. Groupies chasing the band...wet dreams by men. I guess women wrote different songs.

Young people speaking their minds, getting so much resistance....well, could be that young people created the distance.

Autumn, 1977. I stood on the corner in Winslow, Arizona, backpack ashoulder, guitar case at my feet. The girl, my lord, in the flatbed Ford didn't slow down to take a look at me, but the Arizona Highway Patrol Officer did. Field Interrogation: you got anything in that pack I need to know about, son?

No sir. Nope.

Okay, get in. Throw your stuff in the back, and I'll take you to the edge of town.

Worked for me. A cold wind from the east--from Flagstaff--held the scent of snow. I finally got a ride around midnite, from a trucker who took me all the way to Mojave.

posted by mule 13 May | 20:47

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