Cat Power – Fool. Billy Bragg-style solo guitar music with languorous singing.
Back to a song from my own collection – something I’d never really listened to before from an artist rated highly with a rather cool name.
From what I can tell, it’s just Cat Power with a guitar, possibly multi-tracked so she can accompany herself on backing vocals. Not immediately forceful or intrusive, multiple listens bring over the varying tones in her voice, set against the constant rhythm of the guitar.
High and low voices sing out alongside each other, respectively calling out clear as a bell, or breathy and intimate close up to the microphone.
The guitar rolls round and round, like a gigantic wheel ever so slowly building up momentum as it edges down the slight gradient of a road.
And the words, a call to connect, to wake from stupor, from complacent indolence. The fool in this song seems to be one in love not with a dangerous partner, but with the dangers of self-indulgent, consumerist individualism. A call, so gently, so exasperatedly expressed that is not angry but disappointed with those who are a tongue tip away from breaking out of illusion, who could make the tiny leap, but don’t.
Would that I could. The security of the gilded cage seems something I cling to over the risks and opportunities of a life outside the certainties of known knowns. Is recognizing my status as fool the first step to change, or the release valve for the pressures of unfulfillment?
Meantime, it seems Cat Power is ever onward singing and playing this song in an eternal siren-like drowsy serenity.
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