Vega released just four more records over the next 15 years. While her hit was the beaten-neighborhood-kid number “Luka,” her best CD so far is 1990′s “Days of Open Hand.” Discreetly electric, its elegance makes it a classic somewhere between Simon and Garfunkel’s “Bookends” and Leonard Cohen’s “New Skin for the Old Ceremony.”

Although Vega’s next two albums contain strong songs, both are marred by Mitchell Froom’s heavy-handed production — the man wrecked Vega’s sound as thoroughly as he did Richard Thompson’s. Ah, but a fellow who is about to interview Vega inside a conference room at her publisher’s office better watch what he says! Vega married Froom back in 1995 and bore his child …

So what’s with Suzanne Vega in the ’90s? Leonard Cohen has put out more records than you.

[Laughs] That’s not true! How can that be? I had one come out in 1990. Then 1992. And 1996. That’s three. How many do people want? Three seems like plenty to me. And I had a baby. And all this other stuff happened, too.

When we were kids, musicians came out with a record every year …

Except Leonard Cohen. Yeah, but it was a different time. I don’t think I could ever do that, because I find the whole thing of promoting records and being on tour absolutely exhausting. Try taking the ferry from England with a 2-year-old who has just had a chicken pox vaccine and is throwing a screaming fit. You won’t think, “Oh, I’ll sit down and write a beautiful, poetic song.”

Have recording plans?

Not really. I’m just reorienting myself. A lot of things changed this last year. I had been recording with Mitchell and so we’re not going to work together anymore. Then my record company was swallowed up by another record company. I used to be on A&M, and now I’ll be on Interscope — that is, if they don’t do some massive housecleaning.

Nervous?

They’ve told me I’m one of the artists they’re happy to work with. That’s nice to hear. I believe it. I’ll continue to believe it until I hear otherwise. [Pause] Yeah, I guess I’m a little nervous.

What year did Folk City [where Vega got her start in Manhattan] close?

Probably ’86. Which is so ironic. There was this big folk boom that we were all supposed to be enjoying and then it just closed. Robby [the owner] was going to open Folk City somewhere else. But then he just disappeared.

Folk music still exists, but there’s nothing about your work remotely
hootenanny-esque. Do you care about music labels?

No. [Laughs] Over the years I’ve collected a fairly eclectic audience that appreciates me for the thing that I do. On the other hand I have to say that I really had a home at Folk City from the years 1980 to 1985. I was in heaven because I found other writers who were really interested in lyrics and in playing the acoustic guitar. You could argue with them and stay up all night and drink. It was great.

I didn’t mind being called a folk singer back then, although I have to say it didn’t help me get any gigs. I was considered kind of odd. Usually if a college coffeehouse wanted a folk singer, they wanted someone who could make the audience feel cheerful and I didn’t do any of those things.

So when did you go electric?

What do you mean — when did I put a band together? As soon as I could. Probably in 1983 I started to fool around adding a bass player. Then a synthesizer. And in 1983, the synthesizer was a big deal, a big scary step.

People have tried to get me to play electric guitar and I can’t. The strings just ring out. I was trying to play electric guitar up in Woodstock and the amp caught on fire.

I was doing research and found this Musician magazine interview [June 1990] about how after your Puerto Rican father announced he was not your biological father, you hired a private detective to track your real dad down. Has this experience ever shown up in a song?

One song, “Blood Sings.” The audience always cries at that song, but they have no idea what I’m talking about. I’m completely cryptic. You’d never guess that I’m looking at photographs of my relatives, and I’m actually singing about an uncle that died before I got to know him.

This is the only time I really dealt with the issue head on. Strangely enough, I react to it more visually. Because my father sent me all these photographs, I found myself wanting to do weird self-portraits or family history scrapbooks depicting the different configurations that my family has gone through.

It’s like you’re a character in a Ross MacDonald novel — some lost child who hires Lew Archer to find who she really is.

Boy, tell me about it. I definitely sometimes feel like I’m living something. I can’t tell whether it’s Dickensian or film noir. Families are so strange these days. It’s so hard to stay connected. All up and down my blood relatives is the story over and over again of people having children and leaving them somewhere. The bloodline to my father’s line starts in 1850 when a baby was abandoned on an Indian reservation in Missouri. She was my grandmother’s great-grandmother or something.

Wasn’t your grandmother a glamorous singer?

She was a drummer.

A female drummer?

Yeah! There were all these women bands in the 1930s doing the vaudeville
circuit in the Midwest. I’ve seen her picture. She is utterly beautiful to look at. She ran into this trumpet player on the road. The two got married for five years. She had four children. Then he left her. She put three of her kids in an institution. And gave up my father for adoption. From what I can gather, she continued with her career. My father only learned who his parents were two years before I contacted him. I come from a family of traveling musicians and orphans, basically.

Do you feel you’re leaving a public legacy for your 4-year-old daughter?

Nah. [Long pause] I don’t know. She is a curious girl. She wants to know where she’s from. She grills me about who is related to whom. We’re sitting at the dinner table and she is asking, “Who’s your step-grandmother? Who is your brother-in-law?” She wants to know how it’s all related.

As for my public work, she’s told me that when I play the guitar she does not like it. She and Tigger [her doll] feel very jealous. I was like, “Well sweetie …”

Has she seen you onstage?

Oh sure. When I opened in London, she would shout things from the balcony. She didn’t like it if I talked too long and would yell, “Mama, sing!” She liked it as long as she felt it was for her. But now she hates when I pick up the guitar. The other day I was playing my “Greatest Hits” thing [released in Europe only], and she threw a screaming fit, “Stop playing that music! Take it off!” She has a very strong personality. She’s not going to grow up in my shadow. She’s already someone to be reckoned with.

I always felt that you were the Grace Kelly of pop singers.

Oh, so I dressed appropriately today. [Slides her chair from under the table to display her stylish black sweater and skirt]

Your image has always seemed … A kinder word than “reserved.” Maybe “regal.” Just sort of above it all.

That’s nice to hear. Although I’ve been made fun of a lot of times, I can’t tell you. When I was on the swim team I used to get yelled at all the time, “You swim like a lady, and it’s women who win the races, blah blah blah.”

Swimming is a recurring theme for you.

Really?

There’s this episode in your book when you’re drowning and you’re too polite to call for help.

Well, I love the water. I love swimming. I’ve always been drawn to the water as long as I can remember. I love the ocean. Lap swimming is OK, but if I were not to live in New York I would live on the beach. And dress in black, and stride around in my boots by the water.

Tell me who your heroes are besides Leonard Cohen?

[In a thick Jewish accent] Besides Len-ahrd … [regular voice] Lou Reed was a really big hero for a long time and still is. When I want to challenge myself I go back and listen to his early stuff. Like the Velvet Underground album with the banana on the cover. I love the “Berlin” album because I thought it was very confrontational, although I don’t always understand his stream of consciousness. One of my favorite songs is “Stephanie Says, Part 2.” There’s this great verse, “Stephanie says as she gets up off the floor/You can hit me if you want to but I don’t love you anymore.” To me it’s just a perfect opening for a song. It catches the whole mentality as though you could make someone love you by beating the shit out of them. But then he goes off on this weird tangent about snow and Alaska.

Have you ever met Reed?

Several times over the course of 10 or 12 years. And he’s always been
very nice. He’s an odd person. You catch him on the wrong day, he can be
monstrous. But to me he’s always been nice. And as the years have gone on, sometimes he’s even flirtatious in his strange way. Which I always laugh at: “Please. What are you talking about?” But the next time he sees you, it will be a whole different vibe.

There are days where I wish I could be Lou Reed. He seems so cruel. It really seems like he just didn’t give a damn. And I admire that, because I find myself caring a lot about what people think.

If you were to rewrite “Marlene on the Wall” today, who would be on the wall?

Hmmm. I don’t know. I loved Marlene Dietrich for her image. Just her image. And that cruel streak which I find attractive. Then I read biographies and feel sad. Along with her cruel streak there’s all this other stuff that I wish I didn’t know.

So do you have a cruel streak?

I wish I could just say, “Oh yeah.” I wish I had more of one. It’s something you need in this world.

Not to get too personal, but I’m as interested in rage as you are in cruelty. Something I’ve been thinking about is that in America male rage is sexy but female rage is not.

I don’t think male rage is sexy.

Culturally, I mean. Like Jack Nicholson’s freak-out in the restaurant in “Five Easy Pieces.”

You see, I don’t find that sexy. I find that real stupid. When I see some of those scenes, I go, “Oh God. Jesus.” It just doesn’t do it for me. And when we talk about Lou Reed and Marlene Dietrich having a cruel streak, that’s not rage, that’s not out of control. I don’t find male rage sexy. I don’t find violence sexy. I don’t find a guy beating the shit out of another guy sexy. I’m not turned on by violence.

Did your stepfather scream a lot when you were a kid?

Oh, he yelled.

And did your mother yell?

Oh yeah. She yelled back and at him.

I grew up with just the mother screaming.

No, no the two yelled. It wasn’t screaming. Screaming is powerlessness. You scream because you can’t figure out how to be heard any other way. That Jack Nicholson thing, “You can hold the chicken between your knees,” that’s a tantrum. I don’t think tantrums are sexy in anybody, male or female.

But kindness to me is only powerful if it has the cruel streak behind it. If someone is kind all the time under all circumstances, they’re just simple-minded. Kindness is only worth something if you have the cruel streak to back it up.

[Vega's publicist enters to end interview]

I’m glad we went through that thing about rage because a lot of people find violence very sexy. [Thinks a moment] Although you have someone like Michelle Yeoh in the last James Bond film defending herself pretty well. It’s beautiful to see. I saw that and thought, “Oh man. I wish I could be like that. That would be so cool.”

But for the past two weeks, I’ve been paging through “Patti
Smith Complete,” and have reevaluated Smith and her work. Since the
mid-’70s, what woman has matched Smith in both poetic madness and
foolishness? As for men, Bob Dylan and Tom Waits have matched Smith, but she stands behind no one. I still believe “Radio Ethiopia” was a terrible
mistake, but its lyrics are an extraordinary read. “Deep in the heart of your
brain is a lever/Deep in the heart of your brain is a switch/Deep in the heart
of your flesh you are clever/Oh you met your match in a bitch …”

“I worked incredibly hard on the book,” Smith told me during a recent telephone conversation. ” Whenever I see a book, I always imagine how many trees had to give their lives for it, so I wanted the book to be worthy of existing. I actually was pretty happy with most of the lyrics. Most of them seemed to stand on their own.”

Comprising all the lyrics from Smith’s seven albums plus her written annotations, the lavishly illustrated “Complete” is the first great rock ‘n’ roll collection to be published since Dylan’s “Lyrics: 1962-1985.”

I love that the book not only presents your work, but honors those artists
who’ve influenced you.

It’s important to acknowledge our influences. The real beauty of coming out of the culture of the 1960s is the drawing together of all the different arts,
sciences and religions. These things were incorporated in the book. I really
wanted to share the different sensibilities that influenced me.

I thought I was the only Johnny Carson fan left in the world. It was great coming upon that photo of him as a grinning young pup.

If one has seen me throughout my performing career, my love of Johnny Carson wouldn’t be such a surprise. When I was an opening act and trying to read poetry in bars, I often spent most of my 20 minutes, or however much time
I was allotted, sparring with the people — having to throw one-liners back at
their one-liners, or match their insult with a better insult. I learned a lot
about how to conduct myself by studying Johnny Carson’s monologues. When I was a teenager I watched “The Tonight Show” when it was two hours. Johnny Carson would do long monologues and he was really, really excellent, matching insult for insult in a very intelligent, humorous way. I really modeled myself to that kind of situation.

Were you ever on “The Tonight Show”?

No, though I lobbied heavily to be on it. I promised everything. I even
promised I’d wear a dress. I fantasized about it a lot. I wanted to be on Johnny Carson so badly, and it is one of my great regrets that I didn’t make it.

It’s also a pleasant surprise to find that you’re influenced by Maria Callas.

I always admired Maria Callas for her voice first. I’ve also seen her on film, and admire the way she carried herself. She had a great image for the time.

I’ve always loved opera. I had to do an afternoon talk show in Chicago in late ’75 or ’76 where they’d get four or five people who all sit around this table and talk. One of the guests was Pavarotti. He was the new young opera star. No one seemed that interested in talking to him. But I was really excited to meet someone from the opera world. And I talked with him and he gave me a ticket to see him at the Chicago Opera. But all I had was my motorcycle jacket and my old leather pants because I was on the road. [Smith mimics his Italian accent] “You can wear that,” he said. So I show up with this box seat ticket from Pavarotti to see him. Everyone was in evening gowns. It was really beautiful.

Who is the woman in the picture who’s wearing the thick black glasses and standing at a music stand under a microphone?

Lotte Lenya. On the other page is a really old Polaroid that Robert Mapplethorpe took of me on the roof of the Chelsea Hotel. There’s a Lotte Lenya album in that Polaroid.

I first saw her in “Threepenny Opera” — she played Pirate Jenny. I liked her singing. When I was a teenager, there weren’t a whole lot of women to model oneself after, but I really liked her. And Tina Turner — she was great. Kind of inaccessible, but she was really strong. And Joan Baez was very influential in the early ’60s when I grew up. But there weren’t a whole lot of female images that I could grab on to. So a lot of my influences were male, Bob Dylan being the major one, also Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison.

What was it like meeting and playing with Bob Dylan?

I met him some years ago.

Just as he was assembling the “Rolling Thunder” tour in the mid-’70s — he asked you to join, right?

Yes. It didn’t work out. I had just recorded “Horses,” and it would have
meant making a commitment away from my band. And Dylan really didn’t need me, he already had such a stellar cast of characters. So I moved on into my own
world. But I got to talk to him and meet him and hear his ideas about things.

I just recently toured Australia and New Zealand with him, and that was really great. It’s always a beautiful thing in your life — it’s one of the things that
makes life worth living — that you never know how things are going to unfold. I
never suspected when I was a teenager seeing him with Joan Baez, and then
following him record by record, and always admiring and [being] influenced by his
work, that I would be singing with him sometime. Working with him. This is one
of the beautiful things in life.

You must be in a similar position now, having iconic status among so many other performers.

You’d have to ask them about that. I’ve met people who’ve said those things
about me, and I’ve become friends with some of them and worked with them. But somebody like Michael Stipe — it’s not for me to talk about their feelings. You’d have to talk to them.

When you wake up in the morning, you don’t say, “Ah, I’m an icon”?

When I wake up in the morning, I wake up because one of my kids knocks on the door. And it’s time to make cereal because they’re going to school. So I
stumble down the stairs and make cereal. And make sure that the clothes I put
in the dryer the night before are out for them to wear. And then I take my
daughter to school. I don’t think there’s any part of my consciousness that
considers that I have any kind of historic place on earth except in their
life.

I know your son has played guitar for you on stage. Have your other kids seen you perform?

They’ve seen things. My kids are just like any other kids. They think of me as their mother. That’s my essential identity with them. They’ll see me sometimes and they think I do pretty good. Other times they’re totally disinterested. And I’m happy with that. They basically look to me as their mother — that’s the only identity I need with them.

I wanted to ask you about one of the illustrations — on Page 23, there’s a beautiful photograph of a blurry rider on a horse —

That’s a Polaroid of my brother [Todd Smith, 1949-1994]. It was taken when he was in the Navy in the ’60s. He sent it to me because it was kind of hazy and said, “I thought you would like the picture.” He knew I’d dig the
sensibility of it. I’ve saved the photo all these years — Scotch taped it to one
of my notebooks. So we just photographed it exactly as it remained.

The book is also filled with copies of your first drafts.

Those are the original drafts. That “Piss Factory” was the originally draft of
what became my first single. “The Year of Gemini” is my original draft of the
song Blue Vyster Cult recorded. There’s one other thing with a picture of
Allen Ginsberg and I — that’s just a fragment of a poem I was writing that I
just put there. All of the ephemera, as we call it, in the book is vintage of
a time. For instance, there’s the set list of my first poetry reading in 1971. I found it in an old trunk.

Do you know that a piece is going to be a lyric or a poem before you start it?

Yes, because it’s a different process. A poem completely stands on its own
and it’s from a whole really heightened level of me that I can tap. And in poetry, often whom I’m communicating in the poem is myself or my god. I’m really much more cerebral and much more, in some ways, selfish. It’s a self-oriented process. Because I’m not so interested in, or I’m not even thinking about, who is going to read the poem. I’m just trying to define pieces with a certain poetic language. I know that this isn’t as articulate as it could be — I’m no expert in explaining poetry.

With the lyric process, lyrics are for songs, and songs are for people. Without compromising, I’m always aware that I’m writing something that people are going to hear, and hopefully be influenced and moved and struck by. I really
write songs for people; I don’t write songs for myself. I might write a song
to comfort myself or because I’m really sad, but almost 90 percent of the
lyrics that I write, I write for people.

- – - – - – - – - – - -

Patti Smith will be visiting bookstores in San Francisco, Los Angeles,
New York, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Minneapolis and Boston throughout November. Just before the tour (Oct. 27), Smith will appear at the 92nd Street Y in New York City, where she will be interviewed onstage for Rolling Stone.

Money makes me go away. Would that it were so with rock’s elder
statesmen. But as the return of Fleetwood Mac, Hall and Oates, Billy Joel
et al makes clear, money does anything but make them go away. If it did, we
could take my editor’s suggestion and start a collection to buy them each a
golden parachute. (How much would you pay not to hear Jethro Tull again?)
But the sad fact is that each time a once-great band like the Who reunites,
it claims it’s the end: You won’t have Roger Daltrey to kick around
anymore. But then John Entwhistle finds himself up against it again,
ex-wives and such still giving him hell, and soon he’s calling his old
mates. Then we’re treated to the unwelcome spectacle of Pete Townshend on
stage encased like a mummy behind a glass wall to protect his broken ear
drums, giving the old windmill a half-hearted turn as across town some
Broadway showman turns his old music into fodder for the tourists who were
too out of it to go see the Who when they mattered, when Keith Moon was still
alive. (“Oklahoma? OK.”)

Everyone is still reeling from the discovery that Bob Dylan didn’t just have
another good album in him — he had a great album, one as heartfelt and
original as “Blonde or Blonde” or “Blood on the Tracks” — choose your
decade (actually some of “Time Out of Mind” sounds like it was recorded in
another century). And Patti Smith, God bless her, has kept the faith on
“Peace and Noise”: These are songs forged of necessity and passion. No A&R
man had to coax this one out of her. (“This chick thing is big, Pats; the
way I see it, those Lilith dames owe you a piece of the gate.”)

But the Rolling Stones: Why? You trying to tell me they didn’t have enough
money? I guess it’s comforting to know that they can still crank out rock
riffs and boozy ballads in their sleep. Too bad they have to take that
judgment literally. “I’ve seen it all a thousand times,” Mick sings on “Too
Tight.” “I sang that song, I wrote that fucking book.” He could be talking
about every band — every move, every pout — that’s come down the pike since
“Sticky Fingers.” So why does the band sound so pale, as if they were
covering Aerosmith B-sides? Yeah, Keith’s got a few good songs, Charlie
Watts still drives the bus — but come on. This is one band that could skip
the trends. The Stones need the Dust Brothers like Green Day needs strings.

Then there’s Elton John, who’s been in a bit of a pissing match of late with
Keith Richards, who accused him of making a living off of “dead blondes.”
Having the biggest selling single in the world is not enough for Ellie, it
seems. He wants respect, too. Forget about it. His new album, “The Big
Picture,” will doubtless ship platinum and is probably playing at your
dentist’s office right now. Continuing his triumphant reunion with
wordsmith Bernie Taupin (who bills himself simply as “Taupin”), Elton (who,
strangely, has never billed himself simply as “John”) gives us 52 minutes
of inspirational drivel, filled with rhetorical questions such as “Is
loneliness the same as being free?” (answer: no) and titles like “Recover
Your Soul” and “Live Like Horses.” The latter is an exhortation. Eat green
apples, the singer/songwriter seems to be saying. Crap in the street.

Genesis is back, too. Well, sort of. Phil Collins is not with the band.
Ray Wilson has taken over vocal chores on “Calling All Stations,” sounding
a lot like someone doing Phil Collins at a karaoke lounge. Songs are
written by Genesis veterans Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford and, “Congo” — a
song that has nothing to do with the Congo, where Belgians once enslaved
and butchered the natives — gets the sensitivity award for the opening
lines: “You say that I put the chains on you/But that’s not really true.”
“Calling All Stations” features songs about aliens, alienation and really
mean girlfriends, and it all sounds like it’s been filtered through Cream
of Wheat.

Of course, you can’t blame these bands for making music; what else are
they gonna do, practice law? Even a once-great group like the Stones can’t
relax, knowing that a totally washed-up wanker like Bowie is worth $919
million (according to BusinessAge). The Thin White Puke came up with a
novel scheme earlier this year, marketing interest-bearing bonds from his
old song royalties. Buying a piece of that action means that every time you
hear, say, “Space Oddity” on the radio it means ch-ch-ch-change in your
pocket. Just wait until Billy Joel goes public: People won’t let him stop
performing, ever; he’ll be singing that bloody “We Didn’t Start the Fire”
until the flesh falls from his bones. Can’t stop the music, Billy: Your
investors won’t let you.

Money makes me go away. Would that it were so with rock’s elder
statesmen. But as the return of Fleetwood Mac, Hall and Oates, Billy Joel
et al makes clear, money does anything but make them go away. If it did, we
could take my editor’s suggestion and start a collection to buy them each a
golden parachute. (How much would you pay not to hear Jethro Tull again?)
But the sad fact is that each time a once-great band like the Who reunites,
it claims it’s the end: You won’t have Roger Daltrey to kick around
anymore. But then John Entwhistle finds himself up against it again,
ex-wives and such still giving him hell, and soon he’s calling his old
mates. Then we’re treated to the unwelcome spectacle of Pete Townshend on
stage encased like a mummy behind a glass wall to protect his broken ear
drums, giving the old windmill a half-hearted turn as across town some
Broadway showman turns his old music into fodder for the tourists who were
too out of it to go see the Who when they mattered, when Keith Moon was still
alive. (“Oklahoma? OK.”)

Everyone is still reeling from the discovery that Bob Dylan didn’t just have
another good album in him — he had a great album, one as heartfelt and
original as “Blonde or Blonde” or “Blood on the Tracks” — choose your
decade (actually some of “Time Out of Mind” sounds like it was recorded in
another century). And Patti Smith, God bless her, has kept the faith on
“Peace and Noise”: These are songs forged of necessity and passion. No A&R
man had to coax this one out of her. (“This chick thing is big, Pats; the
way I see it, those Lilith dames owe you a piece of the gate.”)

But the Rolling Stones: Why? You trying to tell me they didn’t have enough
money? I guess it’s comforting to know that they can still crank out rock
riffs and boozy ballads in their sleep. Too bad they have to take that
judgment literally. “I’ve seen it all a thousand times,” Mick sings on “Too
Tight.” “I sang that song, I wrote that fucking book.” He could be talking
about every band — every move, every pout — that’s come down the pike since
“Sticky Fingers.” So why does the band sound so pale, as if they were
covering Aerosmith B-sides? Yeah, Keith’s got a few good songs, Charlie
Watts still drives the bus — but come on. This is one band that could skip
the trends. The Stones need the Dust Brothers like Green Day needs strings.

Then there’s Elton John, who’s been in a bit of a pissing match of late with
Keith Richards, who accused him of making a living off of “dead blondes.”
Having the biggest selling single in the world is not enough for Ellie, it
seems. He wants respect, too. Forget about it. His new album, “The Big
Picture,” will doubtless ship platinum and is probably playing at your
dentist’s office right now. Continuing his triumphant reunion with
wordsmith Bernie Taupin (who bills himself simply as “Taupin”), Elton (who,
strangely, has never billed himself simply as “John”) gives us 52 minutes
of inspirational drivel, filled with rhetorical questions such as “Is
loneliness the same as being free?” (answer: no) and titles like “Recover
Your Soul” and “Live Like Horses.” The latter is an exhortation. Eat green
apples, the singer/songwriter seems to be saying. Crap in the street.

Genesis is back, too. Well, sort of. Phil Collins is not with the band.
Ray Wilson has taken over vocal chores on “Calling All Stations,” sounding
a lot like someone doing Phil Collins at a karaoke lounge. Songs are
written by Genesis veterans Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford and, “Congo” — a
song that has nothing to do with the Congo, where Belgians once enslaved
and butchered the natives — gets the sensitivity award for the opening
lines: “You say that I put the chains on you/But that’s not really true.”
“Calling All Stations” features songs about aliens, alienation and really
mean girlfriends, and it all sounds like it’s been filtered through Cream
of Wheat.

Of course, you can’t blame these bands for making music; what else are
they gonna do, practice law? Even a once-great group like the Stones can’t
relax, knowing that a totally washed-up wanker like Bowie is worth $919
million (according to BusinessAge). The Thin White Puke came up with a
novel scheme earlier this year, marketing interest-bearing bonds from his
old song royalties. Buying a piece of that action means that every time you
hear, say, “Space Oddity” on the radio it means ch-ch-ch-change in your
pocket. Just wait until Billy Joel goes public: People won’t let him stop
performing, ever; he’ll be singing that bloody “We Didn’t Start the Fire”
until the flesh falls from his bones. Can’t stop the music, Billy: Your
investors won’t let you.

No other collection of songs has ever expressed the poignant agonies and sheer rage of girlhood like this. In these songs is the sharp, self-pitying nihilism of girls sitting in their bedrooms and slitting their wrists, the dull ache of having sex with someone who couldn’t care less about you, and then the joy — the liberating, screaming joy — of an experience like walking into a punk club for the first time and finding it full of girls exactly like you. Both the film and the music perfectly capture the highly pitched passion and symbiotic bonds between teenage best friends and the searing pain that comes from their dissolution.

Leisha Hailey, one half of the rainbow-haired duo the Murmurs, plays Lucy, Claude’s love interest, and the song the Murmurs contribute to the soundtrack is its most devastating. Anyone who remembers the Murmurs from their catchy but slight 1995 mini-hit “You Suck” will be surprised by the soulfulness and ragged sadness on “Squeezebox Days.” Heather Grody sings in a high, raw voice over a brooding, melodic guitar, “I don’t care if you don’t know me/And I don’t even care if you don’t like me/Can’t we just spend the night together/So I’ll have something to think about tomorrow.”

Contrasting the Murmurs’ lovely fatalism is Sleater-Kinney’s driving, harmonic punk. “I Want to Be Your Joey Ramone,” with its half-ironic refrain, “I’m the queen of rock ‘n’ roll,” bursts with so much desire and ambition it could propel a girl right through her miserable adolescence. In the juxtaposition of these two songs is the possibility of redemption — a banal idea, maybe, but thank God these bands take it seriously, because it’s also a life-changing one.

There are a few male-fronted bands among the album’s 20 tracks, and even a ’70s disco song by Bee-Gees rip-off artists the Ozark Mountain Daredevils. But it’s the women, from Patti Smith to Ani DiFranco, who make the album so brilliant. “Claude has done her homework,” said director Alex Sichel, “she’s researched the girl rocker thing. In a way, the soundtrack tells the history of righteous girl music, which is Claude’s music.”

Because music is so integral to Claude and Ellen’s life, music supervisor Bill Coleman had a chance to assemble brilliant female musicians without having to force them under any particular genre umbrella. Too often, “women in rock” compilations stereotype women singers as folky earth-mothers or tattooed wild women. But this album doesn’t need a thesis — it’s just girls and their guitars.

Almost every song on this album owes its existence to Patti Smith, whose poster hangs over Claude’s bed. On “Pissing in a River,” her voice is so huge and deep that she encompasses and embodies two generations of female longing.

Originally, Alex Sichel had planned the film as a documentary about the riot grrl movement, and the scene pervades the soundtrack. Babes In Toyland open the album with the haunting “Hello,” full of guitar wails and girlish whispers that turn into growls. Helium’s “Hole in the Ground” is in the same vein: thick, feedback-laden and simmering. Ultimately, though, the musical world that serves as the milieu of “All Over Me” is unified less by style than by its smoldering emotional intensity. DiFranco is frequently labeled a folk singer, and her music is sharp and clear instead of fuzzy and distorted, but her bittersweet “Shy” fits easily into the scene that the soundtrack evokes. So does the slow, twangy lament “Superglider,” by Drugstore, a band that sounds a lot like Mazzy Star.

If you leave the CD playing for a few minutes after the last song,
a bonus track comes on, a heartbreaking little ballad that sums up
the entire album with the refrain, “you make me feel so fucking
real.” A trite sentiment, to be sure, but it’s one that cracks with
emotion. If only I’d had this CD when I was 15.