25 Years Later
25 years after Meredith Brooks and I (unexpectedly) caught lighting in a bottle on a very ordinary afternoon, we reunited at the 2022 She Rocks Awards and celebrated our love-child’s birthday. Happy Birthday, “Bitch”!
w/ @Milck
Needless to day the anniversary itself gives me pause simply because of the unfathomable speed of the passage of time which keeps on Slipping Slipping Slipping into the future. I can’t even…
For me “Bitch” was a term of endearment for all the complicated and lovable hypocrisies women present. At the time of conception Meredith and I were both going through some kind of metamorphosis unbeknownst to each other and when we got in the same room all those feelings exploded. That’s my favorite kind of Songsex: Confessional. Organic. Un-calculated.
“Writing with the right person in that particular moment was what made it all come together,” says Meredith, who was also being honored with a Trailblazer Award @SheRocks.
In the summer of 1997, everyone was singing along. A friend in UK sent me this email :
That’s a songwriter’s wet dream.
And 25 years later Lizzo sings it when she wakes up.
People often ask me if I think the song would be a hit today. I don’t. We’ve become too desensitized to the word. It’s ubiquitous now in pop lyrics but back then we struggled to get it played. Oh Elton and Mick had no problem. But women? Neh. It simply wasn’t ladylike. 😶
Perhaps Meredith and I loosened the lid on the concept and paved the way for other ‘ladies’ (all genders actually), to use it freely. But now that it is (used freely) it would be kinda like yawn-been-there-done-that to write a whole song around the actual word. Right?
A hit is the right song at the right time. All Stars On Deck! 1997 was the right time.
The success of “Bitch” put me on the map after years of chasing that lightning. Since then I’ve been all over that map, teetering on the edge, crawling back to the middle, reaching another pinnacle and then falling back down. But that song always saves me. Someone texts out of the blue and says OMG I heard it in on Little Fires Everywhere or Orange Is The New Black!
Not a day goes by when the first line “I Hate The World Today” doesn’t occur to me at some point — when I get cut off after being on hold for 40 minutes, when I hit every red light when I’m already late, when a teenager can’t get a drink but can buy an AR-15.
Truth is I pretty much effing love the world. With all its wars and guns, inequity and hate, there is so much beauty. We have the ability to make it better. To do good work and stay on course. Not that “Bitch” changed the world 🙄 but perhaps it shifted it in some small way…made someone smile. Raise a fist. Feel empowered. For that I am eternally grateful.
And here of course, is the official video. If I recall correctly that black slip was my mother’s!
Mer made sure to get all her friends in the footage. I’m there ever so briefly — 5 months preggers, jumping up and down in the back.
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