25. Why Can't I? - (Liz Phair)

"Something's growing out of this that we can't control / baby I am dying."

I've noticed that this blog is in some serious need of "girl power," and so today I thought we'd tackle one of the feistiest femme fatales ever to have picked up a six-string guitar. My dear readers (both of you), say hello to...


Liz Freakin' Phair: Best. Ever.
Well okay, maybe not "ever" -- but she's definitely towards the top of the list, and inarguably one of the most outspoken female voices in the history of modern music (no offense to Stevie Nicks and the rest). Seriously, her strident Exit in Guyville (1993) remains one of the most groundbreaking albums of all time -- and her gender-defying, convention-shattering swagger has spawned countless scores of imitators in the seventeen years since.

('sup, Katy Perry?).

For today's post, we're tackling "Why Can't I?" -- the biggest (radio-friendly) hit of Liz's career, and a song that has gone on to become a veritable staple of the Phair songbook and lovestruck movie montage cliches ever since. Has she written *better* and more thematically nuanced stuff than this? No question. But try as she might, this song is just so darned popular that it's pretty much become her calling card.

Perhaps this is no surprise, however, as the story Phair sings about here is as touching (trite?) as it is timeless:

Girl meets boy. Girl digs boy. Only problem? Both boy and girl have previously existing romantic entanglements (how's THAT for a "Bad Romance?"). Yet in spite of themselves, both boy and girl are increasingly powerless to resist the fickle finger of fate. As Phair says: "it's just like [they] were meant to be."

Being of a literary bent, one might even call these two puppy lovers "star cross'd."

(You totally know what's coming next, don't you?)

Romeo & Juliet (1597)- William Shakespeare
(Bingo)

Like Liz Phair's "Why Can't I?", Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet is arguably the single work in the artist's long and storied career that is most widely accessible to a casual audience. Has he written *better* stuff? And *deeper* stuff? Most definitely ('sup, Hamlet?) -- but the sheer enormity of this particular piece is just so freakin' ubiquitous that it has become virtually impossible to discuss the guy without paying at least some due degree of attention to that which has become his veritable calling card.

Fair enough. So here's the PG-version of the plot:

Romeo & Juliet: A tale of two "star cross'd lovers" from rival families who meet, fall in love, and ultimately take their own lives when the weight of the world threatens to destroy their forbidden bond (a.k.a - the prototypical "Bad Romance"). Not coincidentally, both Romeo and Juliet just so happen to meet by chance, and are "kinda-sorta' seeing other people" when they first "kinda-sorta" get together.

Or, as Liz Phair might say:

"Holding hands with you when we're out at night
You've got a girlfriend, you say it isn't right...
And I've got someone waiting, too."

Now sure, this might sound like simple puppy-love, "kid" stuff. But for those of us who wanna' venture a little deeper into the "adult" themes of this little story, Romeo & Juliet actually deals extensively with some seriously "mature" subject matter -- namely, issues of sex and death. Throughout the play, Shakespeare treats both events as transcendant equals, and puns on the Elizabethan notion that "to die" actually meant "to orgasm" (ahh, so THAT's what Cutting Crew meant when they sang "I just died in your arms tonight"). Far-fetched, you say? Hogwash -- it's right there in the text:

• The Capulet boy "worms" his way into the Montague girl's "tomb" (hey wait a second...)
• Romeo's "dagger" (wink!) penetrates Juliet's "sheath" (word origin of "sheath?" SCANDALOUS! Google it).
• And within mere hours of gettin' it on? The lovers (quite literally) end up "dying" in one another's arms.

Vulgar and obscure though it certainly may seem, it appears as if our girl Liz Phair is actually quite hip to this whole "sex & death" riddle. Heck, it's right there in her song, too. As she sings:

"Here we go, we're at the beginning
We havent f***ed yet, but my head's spinning
...
Something's growing out of this that we can't control
Baby I am dying."

Classy, Liz. Real classy.
But still, Shakespeare himself would agree that her point is well-taken:

You're not just "dying" to be WITH someone else, you're *dying* unto yourself by SURRENDERING your body/heart/mind/etc. on over to another person. You can't fight it. You can't control it. And in the end? You can't really do all that much to change it, either.


Joey Lawrence: Talk about your tales of "WHOA."
Hmm... maybe *that's* why Liz Phair's been having all of those breathing problems.

For her sake, here's hoping that she gets that stuff sorted out before Act V.

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