Music Monday: Hole

I cannot believe that, in almost a year of Music Monday's, I have never posted a Hole track.  It would be fair to say that I idolised Courtney Love when I was a teenager.  It would also be fair to say that, actually, I still kinda do.  Incredibly charismatic, intelligent and articulate, every interview with her I've ever seen or read has left me in awe.  She may be mad, bad and dangerous to know (sample line from the book Everyone Loves Our Town: A History of Grunge (which you will be glad to know I have just finished, so should soon stop posting endless guff about the early 90s): "How do you know Courtney is lying?  Her lips are moving."), but she is an amazing cultural icon.  

Courtney's signature mid-90s look of tattered satin babyboll dress, smeared lipstick, torn fishnets and Mary Jane shoes was one I co-opted enthusiastically at the time, and in fact it's still a big influence on my style.  I've had to grudgingly admit that what looks cute on an 18 year old (crazy bleached hair, eyeliner scrawls on arm, jumble sale nightie-as-outerwear... ok, so maybe this never looked cute) looks mental on a 33 year old, but the Peter Pan collars she rocked still linger in my wardrobe.  It wasn't just her fashions that influenced me, though; to my detriment I spent a good portion of my late teens cultivating a similarly damaged persona.  Why does misery seem so very glamourous when you're 17?

Choosing a single Hole song to represent well over a decade and a half of fandom is a hard one.  Live Through This (released, with tragic timing, a few days after Kurt Cobain killed himself, on April 12th 1994) is for me their best album by far.  The big singles from the album, Doll Parts and Violet, have never been favourites of mine.  I prefer the rawness of She Walks Over Me, Jennifers Body and the track above, Gutless.  I don't think any line sums up Courtney better than "Just you try to hold me down / Come on try to shut me up".