A Swift Kick From 1995

Sonic Youth - Little Trouble Girl (m4a, not mp3)

Seriously. Watch the video. Listen to the song. It is delicious. It's like the first time I watched Ghost World. A couple of us gals spent the night in a friend's attic bedroom in a drafty house. We curled into bed and watched the movie and I was completely floored. This is what being a girl is, neigh this is what being a teenage girl is (and even now I'd contend that this is how it is, though I'm not all that far-removed from teenage-hood). This is the isolation I feel. This is how my life and my perceptions are deflating. None of that is wrong, really, but it's just how it is. Recently, I tried to explain to someone why Ghost World is one of my favorite movies (and then one of my favorite comics) and I couldn't without resorting to, "You have to be a girl to understand. It perfectly portrays what growing up as a girl feels like." I really hated myself for saying that because it was inadequate.



But that's the way I would attempt to describe "Little Trouble Girl", too. I can't succinctly write about why this song encompasses and opens up everything ever about my gender as I've experienced it any better than how I attempted to explain why Ghost World is just so good. "Little Trouble Girl" may be a little bit more on the surface but it's the sing-songy repetition, the general malaise (fancy word alert) that really does it. Plus, Kim Deal! Kim Gordon! Perfection, those two.