Liz Phair recalls breaking into 'cold sweats' a week before revolutionary, sexually explicit 'Exile in Guyville' release: 'Oh, f***, what have I done?'
"I was like, 'Can I go to the pressing plant and stop this? Can I call this off? Can I in some way not do this?' But it was too late. And that just keeps following me, till the end when I'm gone."
Sexually explicit lyrics by female artists are common now, but when trailblazing Chicago singer-songwriter Liz Phair released her voice-of-a-generation debut album Exile in Guyville back in 1993, its brazenly self-assured tracks, like “F*** and Run” and a stream of “unpure, unchaste” sexual fantasies titled “Flower,” caused a stir. Phair tells Yahoo Entertainment such lyrics were “shocking intentionally” and she has no regrets, but she confesses that 30 years ago, when she realized her parents would hear the record — particularly “Flower” — she began to have second thoughts about Guyville’s release.
“With my more explicit songs, I feel very free when I'm making art. I don't think about the implications of what's going to happen to me when I'm making it. I think that allows me to have a career, because I have this blind spot for connecting the consequences to my actions, if you will. I think a lot of rebellious people can relate to that,” Phair chuckles. “And so, with Guyville, there's a song on it called ‘Flower,’ which is nothing. I thought of it as like a rap or something, like an explicit rap or a spoken-word piece. It's just wall-to-wall X-rated thoughts, kind of one after the other, making fun of that rock ‘n’ roll swagger that so many male bands bring. But by putting it in a tiny little-girl voice, I thought of it as political at the time, because at Oberlin College I learned that the young female voice carries the least amount of authority in society. It's like the least-listened-to voice. And so I thought, ‘If I sing these really raunchy lyrics in this tiny little sped-up girl voice, is anyone going to catch it? What is that going to do? What does that juxtaposition do in society?’
“But then I was spending the night at my parents and [Exile in Guyville] was about to come out like a week later, and I suddenly felt, like, ‘Oh, f***, what have I done?’” Phair laughs. “And I can remember, because I had this capture memory for small moments, staring at my childhood closet door, thinking about the secrets that were in those little keepsake drawers and stuff, and thinking, ‘Oh, I've really, really done it.’ Cold sweats. I was like, ‘Can I go to the pressing plant and stop this? Can I call this off? Can I in some way not do this?’ But it was too late. And that just keeps following me, till the end when I'm gone.”
Phair’s legacy obviously extends far beyond one racy, radio-unfriendly line about oral sex. It could be argued that her brave, brazen, sex-positive confessionals paved the way for everyone from Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, and Olivia Rodrigo to Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion. “I started this sort of crusade that was really important to me in my twenties, to kick doors down and make people look at the way we live and make people look at the way they saw women, and make people look at how limited women's choices were for self-expression,” Phair, 56, explains. Ahead of her 30th anniversary Exile in Guyville tour, on which she will perform the landmark album in its entirety, Phair looks back at her history of shattering “good girl” stereotypes and proving “rock-dude gatekeepers” wrong.
Yahoo Entertainment: Let’s go back to 1993. When Exile in Guyville came out, it provoked some very strong reactions — both good and bad.
Liz Phair: Yeah, I was judged harshly because of a lot of things, but especially because I dared to be sexual in my songs. And I knew what I was doing. I was making the point that male rock stars sing about sex, and they are the seekers of sex, but the women in the songs are almost always just sort of an object, or something to save, or something to rail against. I was just flipping the script, and I knew it; it was, to me, very obvious. But a lot of people just took it at face value. They're like, “My God, she wants to be the ‘blowjob queen’! Who would sing that?”
You say you knew what you were doing. Can you elaborate on what you were trying to accomplish?
It was shocking intentionally, because I felt like women's roles were limited. I felt like our ability to express ourselves was being put through this filter of the “good girl.” … Things have changed now. If someone said, “I want to be your blowjob queen,” would it even be shocking? But I actually am taking that back, because when [Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s] “WAP” came out, people were still up in arms about that!
A lot of the mythology surrounding this album has to do with how it was a track-by-track response to the Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street. Can you tell me a bit more why you decided to work within those parameters?
I did it because I didn't know how to make an album. And I suddenly had a producer [Brad Wood] interested, based on these Girly-Sound tapes that I’d record when I'd come back from the bar and I'd start playing with my four-track. … They were these crazy cassette tapes that I had recorded in my bedroom, like a crazy person in her teen years. I mean, some of them are just ridiculous. You can tell that I either just came back from the party drunk or whatever. … Maybe I'd write a song about Elvis. Maybe I'd write a song about anything. I would do mashups with classic songs that people knew. But I didn't know how to make an album. I had no idea at that point that anyone would ever listen to my music.
So, my whole life was tracking toward this one goal, and music was something that I did secretly. I know that sounds really strange. I had boyfriends in bands and stuff, but you can hear it in my early tapes, those Girly-Sound tapes. … So, I'd asked this “expert” boyfriend, I was moving house and there was a box of cassettes. I said, “What's the greatest album of all time? Like, what should I learn from? What's the template of templates?” And I saw “Rolling Stones” on the label. I'm like, “What about this one? Is thisa good one?” And he just looked at me and he had this super-sarcastic look in his eye, and he's just like, “Oh, yeah, right, you should do a double-album for your first album.” I could tell he didn't think I could do it. I could tell he thought it was outrageous. And everything, all the feelings I had been having, all the frustration, just suddenly galvanized in me. I'm like, “OK, well, I'll do a double-album. Watch me.” … I don't know what gave me the hubris to touch Exile on Main Street. I guess it was innocence and stupidity.
And so, what I did was mix lyrics. You know, with Jagger's lyrics in the songs, if he's talking about a girl, I play the girl, you know? So, if I'm in his story, if you look at [the Stones song] “Rocks Off” and you look at [Guyville’s opening tack] “6’1,” he meets someone that he's had a past history with on the street as he's coming back from a night with some hot dancer. And he's like, “Ah, there's the girl that wants to know why I haven't called her.” And she can tell he’s doing the walk of shame. So, I'm on the other side, looking at him, going, like, “I bet you fall in bed too easily with the beautiful girls who are shyly brave.” Like, I'm looking up at him, and we're not saying this to each other, but that's what the instant recognition on the street is.
Do you know what the actual Rolling Stones thought of Guyville? Surely they’re aware of it. Have you ever spoken with them about it?
I only have two encounters to share. Mick I met at… I can never remember the name of the studio, but it's in L.A., the famous studios that has Kermit the Frog [Henson Studios, formerly A&M]. They were debuting their new record — I can't remember which one it was at the time — and I met him in the hallway. I don't think he's actually listened to it, but he was very polite. But he gave me this attitude, like, “Yeah, you're pretty cheeky, eh, using our name to get famous!” It was like he was joking, “I'll forgive you for that — thistime!” He was perfectly pleasant and cute, but that's the way it's reached him, you know? And then the only thing other thing with the Stones I have is Keith Richards's book, Life, I got to review that for the New York Times, and then some quotes from my review were picked up for the jacket cover. So, that was pretty cool.
You talk about a lot men in your orbit, when you were attending Oberlin and hanging in the Chicago scene, before Guyville came out — how these rock bros would discredit you, basically. Tell me more about that.
When I was in college, I felt like I was as much of a music fan as anyone, but a lot of the guys made me feel embarrassed for my taste. My innocence in high school, of just liking what I liked, became deeply uncool when I went to Oberlin, and everyone was super-indie-rock with an almost encyclopedic knowledge of what band had broken up and reformed or whatever. … So, I felt suddenly as if I wanted to be quiet.
I am under the impression that that Chicago alt-rock scene was pretty macho then — hence the term “Guyville.” Chicago’s Urge Overkill, whose singer Nash Kato took the cover photo for your debut album, had a song about that scene called “Goodbye to Guyville” in 1992.
Well, when you say “macho” or “bro,” I think of that sort of beer-and-sports culture. That's what I hated about, because I'd fled this sort of machismo of mainstream culture, only to find it again in the alternative scene! It was a different kind of macho, in that these guys were “alternative.” They had their wallet chains and boots and workman clothes and stuff. And here I was in the supposedly alternative world where they were. I think the whole point of that scene in the beginning was to find an alternative economy, even for music. They didn't want to do the big major-label thing. And they did have a fully functioning independent market — which was guy-run. It was freakin’ guy-run, everywhere. So, that was a rude awakening for me to see.
Eventually you start to look around the room at the people that intimidate you — and they're all guys, they're all dudes, And something about that feels weird. And you have to make a choice: Are you going to actually put yourself out there and be vulnerable and be judged? I recall the first time I ever heard my voice recorded, like in a studio; I heard it played back over the big speakers with a bunch of people. Listening was one of the most embarrassing experiences in my life, because you don't know what your voice sounds like recorded until you hear it. I think I'd never heard it except for maybe on an answering machine. It takes a lot of bravery to make music and to make art in general, and usually there’s a catalyst. For me, it was all these sort of rock-dude gatekeepers. They were my motivation, to prove them wrong.
You’re about to go on tour to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Exile in Guyville. But I recall when you first played shows in the early ‘90s, you were known for having stage fright and being inconsistent live. What was going on there?
I guess I didn't have the experience under my belt. I think if you want to be a performer growing up, then you are ready to go: The minute the spotlight lands on you, you're like, “Thank you! I've been waiting! I'm ready to show you what I've got!” But I came to it from an art place; I wanted to be a visual artist first, and I had a double-major of art history and studio art. So, I made the record and I felt very comfortable in the studio. It was like painting with sound. I'm like, “OK, I can do this.” And then I remember I had a frenemy roommate at the time, and he knew how I had no stage experience. And this is about a week before my debut record came out; I think I had played in my entire life maybe two shows before that record came out. So, if you want to know why I was uncomfortable, it because I was completely new. But the record did sound like that. The record sounded like I had no experience, somewhat.
So, imagine to go from zero experience and stage fright and then all of a sudden it's the kind of traction you dream of. Everyone's talking about you. Everyone wants to see you. You're selling out shows. And you have no experience. … I found myself torn, because I suddenly had success and I had a job, and I could tell my dad I was taking over the car insurance and all this kind of good stuff. But at the same time, those early shows, when I had no experience and I was not a performer, were just brutal. I remember a friend telling me it was like when you see ice-skaters fall down a lot, my early shows. They're like, “We couldn't watch!” It was kind of like, “Oh, is she going to fail? Is she going to freak out?”
Any memories of good gigs from that era?
When I look back, there's a certain show that everyone posts. It was the Vic [in Chicago]. This is kind of a funny story! So, I put out my first record and I found that I did not like performing live. I was like, “That was terrible. I sucked at it. Let's just make records.” So, I make my next record, which turned out to be [1994’s] Whip-Smart. And fans really liked the record and thought it was great, and they're like, “Are you going to tour?” And I'm like, “No, no, let's stick to what we're good at.” But then I got this really strongly worded legal letter from Atlantic that was like, “Here's what you’ve got to do.” So, I was like, “Well, f*** it, I'm just going to go out by myself.” And so I went on this tour, and it was just me and my sound woman, and we went all over. By the time we got to the Vic, I'd been on the road and gotten some chops. And that show in particular, it’s just me, and I'm not even making eye contact with the audience, really. It's just this little small woman standing there with her guitar — and it's awesome. It's really, really good. So, yes, I was hard on myself, but no one likes to be unprepared or inexperienced, right? It was just kind of me going from the art brain to a totally different job, which is performing.
You seem pretty comfortable onstage nowadays.
When I have the band, then I really feel like a true performer after 30 years, and we crush it. We go and play big shows, really big shows, and we crush it. But it's a very different thing to strip it back and just be the singer-songwriter that I truly am and just stand there kind of naked in front of an audience.
After Exile in Guyville, you made different-sounding records — more produced, less lo-fi. Whip-Smart, as you say, was mostly well-received. But of course there was backlash, cries of “sellout” or whatever.
Well, people really did want me to make Exile 2. And I understand that that desire completely, but I think it would have been very hard and disingenuous of me to go back in and try to fake something too. I'm sure it could have been lucrative!
I remember how in 2003, Pitchfork gave your self-titled “pop”-crossover album zero stars and really slammed it. But then in 2019, the journalist who wrote that went on social media and publicly apologized to you for being so harsh.
Yeah, Matt LeMay! We follow each other on Twitter! That review in particular… he acknowledged, he was like, “I was 19.” They handed a 19-year-old this review, because they did it on purpose. They did it to grind me through the machine. It was a deliberate move. They were into that kind of thing back then, media violence. But that one particular review I was a little bit fond of, because “zero out of zero” is kind of funny. It's not serious. I knew what that record was, and I knew what it wasn't. And my opinion of it hasn't changed a bit since I made it. I like that record. It is what it is. But this 19-year-old kid, I think he's great for coming out [16 years later] and saying that stuff and acknowledging it. And I was never mad about that particular review. I was more devastated by people that felt that I’d personally betrayed them.
But where did this outrage and sense of betrayal even come from?
It was from the fanzine culture. It was from the zines. There was a point in the early ‘90s — and is coming from the punk movement, like the tail end of the punk movement — zines were these things that people Xeroxed and stapled together and put around the city in coffee shops and venues and restaurants. And it wasn't all men, but the game was to be really bitchy and awful in the reviews and to out-bitch each other and denigrate anyone that had any success. That was a big thing, the tall poppy syndrome. And I never bought into that. I had no interest in that, and I didn't really relate to that mentality. Why would you? But I always love good writing. So, like, with [record producer and punk musician] Steve Albini, even though he called me and [fellow successful alt-rock Chicago artists] Smashing Pumpkins and Urge Overkill the “Three Pandering Sluts” [in a Chicago Reader essay], I can appreciate someone being really mean and nasty, if they write really well and it's funny.
“Sellout” or not, what you and your female peers did in the ‘90s changed the game. It was a really important era for women in music. It must have been exciting to be a part of that.
What I remember is it was like PJ Harvey, Tori Amos, Courtney Love, and me, and there was this little thing that was happening right around ‘93. Every time I saw a piece in the news about me, it mentioned those women, and I'm sure they had the same experience. There was this sort of [headline] like, “What's going on with women right now?” It was kind of cool to be part of something that felt like we were changing… I don't mean that we were changing the industry, I mean we felt like we were changing as people and as women, coming into our own. … I do think we've seen, 30 years later, how many more independent female artists there are now. It was nothing like that when I was coming up. But maybe I'm looking at this through rose-colored glasses or whatever.
Earlier, you mentioned that Guyville songs like “Flower” are what will follow you till the end. What sort of legacy would you like to be remembered for?
I would like to leave behind that a woman has many facets. She has her intellectual side. She has her proactive side. She has her introverted side. She has her shy side. And she has her sexual side.
Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:
Follow Lyndsey on Facebook, X, Instagram, Amazon
The above interview is edited for brevity and clarity and is taken from Liz Phair appearance on the SiriusXM show “Volume West.” Full audio of that conversation is available on the SiriusXM app.
