Even the Mountains Looked Like Vaginas...

Chinatown, by the Be Good Tanyas

When I was a sophomore English Major at Stanford, I took the 50 cent tour of American Literature from a man named Arturo Islas. He was considered a brilliant lecturer and important Mexican-American author. I watched him get mugged after class one day because he said Gone With the Wind was a racist, chauvinist piece of garbage, and, that Jim was the true hero of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. He was upbraided by a cross-section of students, but what surprised me were the number of women jumping on him about the struggles of Scarlet O'Hara. It became evident to my 19 year old mind that very moment that, regardless of whether men actually believe we understand, or merely think we understand women, they know and live as if we don't. And we don't.

My junior year, I was out stumbling around the dorms one weekend night at about 2am, and I had a young lady show me her big Georgia O'Keefe picture book. I didn't have the heart to tell her that I was such a thickheaded male of the species that they all just looked like different colored vaginas on a different background by page 10. Even the mountains looked like vaginas.

So what does all this have to do with The Be Good Tanyas?

Well, I'd like to see them live because I need to know if they can, or ever do, air it out on-stage. Chinatown is a great record, but there's a whispering goddess of ambivalence quality to it that goes over my head, and I'm sure that has to do with me being a boy and them all being girls. They cover a couple of old chestnuts with "House of the Rising Sun" and "I Wish My Baby Was Born," but, the tone and voice are foreign to me for some reason. There just seems to be a feminine depth to this album that I can't penetrate, and I guess I'd have a better idea of where they're coming from and where they want to go, if I could see them singing the stuff live.

That being said, I'm willing to keep peeling the onion and playing the disk on the show. The ladies are great singers, good musicians, and this is a very beautiful record.

Jack's X-Chromosome Top Ten

1. Post to Wire, by Richmond Fontaine
Even the Starbucks look like vaginas.
2. Famous Anonymous Wilderness, by Graham Lindsey
Even the Badgers look like vaginas.
3. Warmth & Beauty, by Thad Cockrell
Even the tobacco looks like vaginas.
4. Live at Billy Bob's, by Jack Ingram
Even the tequila looks like vaginas.
5. Oh the Stories We Hold, by Anna Fermin's Trigger Gospel
Even the White Sox look like vaginas.
6. Fought Down, by Ken Layne & the Corvids
Even Rodeo Drive and the Santa Monica Freeway look like vaginas.
7. Just For The Record, by Bobby Flores
Even the Riverwalk looks like vaginas.
8. Railings, by Frog Holler
You think the Liberty Bell doesn't look like a vagina?
9. Chinatown, by The Be Good Tanyas
10. Chicago Country Legends by The Sundowners
There really isn't an off-color vagina remark you can make about the Sundowners.