Ani DiFranco has an impressive catalog of music – 18 albums released in 16 years and many live recordings. Her songs have played through more than half of my 20-something life, marking my years almost as intimately as she sings of her own. A few summon dream-like slideshows, charged snapshots from my past that span more than a decade. Without DiFranco’s voice--ranging from sweet and folky to beautifully tortured in its fullness--and lyrics--forthright, poetic, deeply personal and political--it would be much more difficult to be the woman, and the feminist, that I am.
With hundreds of songs worthy of mention, a walk through DiFranco’s music can be like a five-day tour of Europe, an odd smattering of history and quick finger-points to the must-see landmarks while whizzing off to the next, even more astounding experience.
DiFranco’s self-titled debut album (1990), with its candid words paired with soft guitar strumming, offers brief portraits of a young woman stunned by New York City where “self-preservation is a full time occupation.” She paints the city simply and playfully in its harsh charm and dehumanizing vibrancy with songs like “Fire Door,” “Out of Habit” and “Talk To Me Now.” For those shocked by the sudden intimacy with which one is introduced to DiFranco’s politics and personal experiences--ranging from abortion in “Lost Woman Song” to capitalism to break-ups--she suspected as much: “Taken out of context/I must seem so strange.” She adeptly describes our complex and changing relationships with ourselves, others, our government, and the charged, always controversial “C” word, all the while declaring a determined, strong, yet vulnerable self-purpose. DiFranco’s first album set the tone and whetted the appetite of listener and artist for many of her following albums as she continues to struggle just to be herself: “I have to act just as strong as I can/just to preserve a place/where I can be who I am.”
Not So Soft (1991), DiFranco’s second album, does not disappoint. Even more pointed, intense, and unapologetic, Not So Soft is a call to action and compassion. She dives further into sociopolitical concerns disappointingly more relevant today, 15 years later, as she achingly sings in “On Every Corner,” “I am looking forward/to looking back/on these days/when on every corner/someone holds a sign/that says I am hungry/I am homeless/and I have AIDS.” In “Roll with It,” she echoes the history of the female war experience. Her questions are all the more pressing now with the war in Iraq: “what if they enemy isn’t in a distant land/what if the enemy lies/behind the voice of command/the sound of war is a child’s cry/behind tinted windows/they just drive by/and all I know is that those/who are going to be killed/aren’t those that preside on capital hill/I say, don’t fill the front lines of their wars/those assholes aren’t worth dying for.”
From her next album, Imperfectly (1992), through Puddle Dive (1993), Like I Said (1993) and Out of Range (1994), DiFranco’s words and music carry on her folky spoken-word style while further enlarging or contracting her gaze on the world and herself with songs like “Born a Lion.” In one minute and 49 seconds, she shirks the traditional female domesticity and submission, figuring, “if you’re born a lion/ why bother trying to act tame?” The subject is pursued in many of her songs, but from the beginning of her career DiFranco has been able to take issues that could be endlessly theorized and elucidate them with words that seem blithe in their poignant clarity. In “Buildings and Bridges” on Out of Range she jubilantly sings accompanied by accordion: “buildings and bridges/ are made to bend in the wind/ to withstand the world that’s what it takes/ all that steel and stone/ are no match for the air/ my friend/ what doesn’t bend breaks.” Yet, on the same album, “Letter to a John” is a fiercely honest, yet freeing song: “we barely have time to react in this world/ let alone rehearse/ and I don't think that I'm better than you/ but I don't think that I'm worse/ women learn to be women/ and men learn to be men/ and I don't blame it all on you/ but I don't want to be your friend.”
Synopsis simply doesn't do DiFranco’s next album, Not a Pretty Girl (1995), justice. A song like “Not a Pretty Girl” could serve as the mantra for the alternative 21st century feminist. In “Million You Never Made,” she suspects her music will be wildly successful; regrets that the recording company is asking her to compromise her music will only be monetary. DiFranco clarifies that she doesn’t “prefer obscurity,” but is an “idealistic girl” who will tease right back to the machine of the recording industry: “I wouldn’t work for you/no matter what you paid/ I may not be able/to change the whole … world/but I could be the million/that you never made.” The soft ferociousness of Not a Pretty Girl and then Dilate (1996) give a new soundtrack to the complex and joyful feminism necessary in a world where, from a woman’s personal relationships to fulfilling careers and dreams, we are constantly being capitalized upon.
Living in Clip (1997)is a must-listen collection (especially for those unfamiliar with her infamous stage presence) of DiFranco’s early music, with live versions of the aforementioned, many more essential songs and also dark, haunting rarities like “Hide and Seek” and “Adam and Eve.” Immediately following Living in Clip is Little Plastic Castle (1998), on which DiFranco is joined by many noteworthy musicians and instruments that seem to further complement her music and give her fresh terrain to master. Little Plastic Castle is a superb album with songs like “Fuel,” “Pixie,” and “Loom” that just seem to be the force propelling my car forward as the words spill out of my lips and I take a tight Vermont curve. Little Plastic Castle begins a period of Ani DiFranco’s music that offers whole, practically seamless albums that carry your ear and mind from first track through last note.
DiFranco’s next album Up, Up, Up, Up, Up, Up (1999) carries on that seamless, flowing style, but her tone is noticeably quieter, even reverent with songs like “'Tis of Thee,” “Virtue,” and “Angry Anymore," sung with tender resolve as she mourns the role of media in America, relinquishes anger over her family history, and in the title track puts the power of divine work into human power: “Up, up, up, up, up, up/points the spire of the steeple/but God’s work isn’t done by God/it’s done by people.”
To the Teeth (1999) is shocking to any Ani fan who expected her to stand still for just one second. Almost the entire album is dramatic in its carnival-like caricatures of human experience with her scathing, but bellowing depiction of life as a circus in “Welcome to the Freakshow” or her seeming revulsion with herself in “Wish I Might,” harking back to her first album, questioning her ability to preserve that place to be herself and singing in a subdued, weak voice: “I don’t think I am strong enough/to do this much longer/god I wish I was stronger.” Playful horns and roaring vocals balance the shadowy nature of this album. Her ambient, almost nostalgic chords and vocals echo DiFranco's own silent scream: “have you ever had that dream/when you open your mouth/and you try to scream/but you can’t make a sound/that’s every day starting now.” Whatever melancholic turn in the “Soft Shoulder” DiFranco may have taken with To the Teeth, joy competes with sorrow. More than merely melancholic, To the Teeth is a call to arms capturing the moment of paralysis before pounce, a call to arm yourself and the world: “you better put some beauty back/while you’ve got the energy.”
After the biting roar of To the Teeth, the double-disc Revelling/Reckoning (2001) continues to simultaneously soothe and strengthen her seductive sadness, but in a more contemplative and softer way, both lyrically and musically. This album is a journey through life-altering moments in “School Night,” “Grey,” and possibly the most haunting illustration of a 21st century woman in “Tamburitza Lingua” where conspiracy-theory truth is disclosed “lab rat to lab rat” by a “guy selling hair dryers out of a gym bag.” The album captures a distinct sense of combined loss and self-soothing as DiFranco explores tearfully the decisions we face and a woman’s inevitable sacrifices in exchange for attaining fulfillment. Her message seems to be the reverse of the old adage: when one door opens, you must close another.
Another long-awaited live compilation, So Much Shouting, So Much Laughter (2002) brings listeners another dose of carefully selected live tracks performed with the six-piece band with whom DiFranco toured for several years. For those not rushing out to buy all the Ani DiFranco music they can find, this, along with Living in Clip would familiarize one with her wide range of songs.
Evolve (2003) is exquisite and, aptly named, takes listeners to a new phase of DiFranco’s growth. The album evokes a woman awakened to new depths of the possibility to feel both pain and relief: “I'm becoming transfixed/with nature and my part in it/which I believe just/signifies/I'm finally waking up.” From her depiction of the current state of politics and the “democrins and the republicrats” in “Serpentine” to her more lucid descriptions of personal experiences, Evolve becomes much more a command to the masses than a statement of individual purpose.
As if DiFranco hadn’t covered an already remarkable amount of ground in her career, her next album Educated Guess (2004) was played and recorded alone on an old analog eight-track recorder in a shack in New Orleans and in Buffalo, NY. Along with Knucledown (2005), Educated Guess is an astounding album. As usual, DiFranco is not afraid to use the “coolest f word ever” in “Grand Canyon.” Rightfully, she asks: “why can’t all decent men and women/call themselves feminists/out of respect.” Knuckledown is a test of acceptance as DiFranco details her attempt to “knuckledown/and be okay with this.” While she laments the self she’s lost (“course that star-struck girl is already someone I miss”), DiFranco seems to enter territory from which there is no return, a view of the world one cannot erase, where white-knuckled acceptance may be the only option once she is “done gunning to get closer/to some imagined bliss.” Along with “Studying Stones,” a seething self-study in the differences between stillness and numbness, each track resonates back through her years, yet remains a beautiful stand-alone portrait of a woman.
Her latest album Reprieve (2006) is both like and unlike her others, surprising in its growth and evolution, yet eerily familiar in evoking a musical nostalgia for what has not been experienced. Reprieve motions back to DiFranco’s quieter intonations as she again balances reflective moments that can make and break a woman’s spirit and ruthless depictions of the modern condition with the same effect: “step up and forfeit your frontal lobe/to the sexed up strobe of celebrity.” With Reprieve DiFranco not only twists her kaleidoscopic view, but, despite the recognizable colors and shapes, presents listeners with a beautiful, subtle shift into a newly composed view of the world.
In lighting out for her own territory, Ani DiFranco illuminated and gave depth and flesh to the shadows cast on the path of womanhood in the 20th, and now 21st, centuries. If her hope has remained the same as in “I’m No Heroine,” – I just write about what I/ should have done/I sing what I wish I could say/and hope somewhere/some woman hears my music/and it helps her through her day – she has more than succeeded.
Jessica McEachern is Publishing Assistant at Vermont Woman.
