Liz Phair - Horror Stories

Ive been writing songs for thirty years. From the beginning, my songs have been stories. Every time I recorded an album, I was writing my memoirs. When I listen to the music I created in my twenties and thirties, I instantly travel back in time to inhabit those moments again: how I felt, what I thought, what hurt me, what I longed for. I wrote straight from the heart so the truth would ring like a bell, and resonate in the listeners heart as well.

Every time I pick up a guitar and start to strum, I hear a melody forming in my head. It dances along with the chords Im playing, bouncing up and down as it tests the boundaries of the key. I feel like Im playing with a wish that wants to get out, or anger that needs to be released. Sometimes I dont even know how Im feeling, until I start singing and it all comes tumbling out. Its almost like dream interpretation, except Im awake. I dont know how Id navigate the world if I couldnt write about it.

My manager called me the day Prince died. I was on tour with the Smashing Pumpkins, opening for them as a solo act in opera houses across the country. My manager and I had other business to discuss, but naturally our conversation turned to Prince, and to all the other artists wed lost in 2016. It seemed like a year in which a disproportionate number of fixed stars in the musical firmament were extinguished. At one point, we joked that this was the Rapture, and God was starting an all-star band. But beneath our levity, a sense of urgency thrummed.

He spoke with uncharacteristic candor. Liz, you need to think about this next record. Nobody knows how much time they have. You might be gone, and you gotta ask yourself: Are you making the album youd want to leave behind if it were your last?

I thought about my son, and what Id like him to know if I wasnt there to guide him. I would bequeath him the courage to face his fears, the vision to see opportunities for connection and love in even the darkest times. Id pass on my faith that theres a brilliant story in each and every moment of our lives if we pay attention. Id draw out the poison of thinking that faults and failures make someone unworthy, and instead Id reveal how bad decisions are just equal and opposite manifestations of great gifts and abilities. Id leave him with the power to hope.

Horror Stories is my effort to slow everything down and take a look at how we really become who we are. Its more than just my personal story. Its about the small indignities we all suffer daily, the silent insults to our system, the callous gestures that we make toward one another. Horror isnt necessarily the big, ghoulish creature waiting to pounce on you in the dark. Horror can be found in brief interactions that are as cumulatively powerful as the splashy heart-stoppers, because thats where we live most of our lives.

In the stories that make up this book, I am trusting you with my deepest self. We spend so much time hiding what were ashamed of, denying what were wounded by, and portraying ourselves as competent, successful individuals that we dont always realize where and when weve gone missing.

How foolish we feel in those rare instances when the fog dissipates, the path is clear, and we see our hapless footprints wandering around all over the place. Those are the resolute moments, the sober morning-after reflections when we plant our feet facing in the direction we wish to go and vow never to deviate from honesty, empathy, and inspiration.

Its hard to tell the truth about ourselves. It opens us up to being judged and rejected. Were afraid we will be defined by our worst decisions instead of our best. Our impulse is always to hide the evidence, blame someone else, put the things we feel guilty about or that were traumatizing behind us and act like everything is fine. But that robs us of the opportunity to really know and care about one another. It closes a door that could lead to someone elses heart. Our flaws and our failures make us relatable, not unlovable.

I learned this when I released my debut album, Exile in Guyville, back in 1993. I wrote those songs during one of the hardest periods of my life. I had no money, and I was lonely, confused about the future and angry about the past. The lyrics reflected my reality in an unflinching, unapologetic, and sometimes explicit way that people deeply connected with. Fans came up to me at my concerts expressing gratitude and admiration for my bravery in telling the truth, because it made them feel a little less isolated and overwhelmed by their own difficulties. They heard themselves in the music, not me.

My motivation for writing this book is to articulate those experiences that people may not always want to recognize, but describe them in a way that makes them worth the effort. By taking situations that are disempowering and then finding a way through the maze, I find that examining the weaker moments in our lives makes us stronger. In that, I dont think I am alone.

Come walk down some dark and mysterious paths with me. Once your eyes adjust, youll see that monsters are only mirrors. There is music in the creaking trees. Deep beneath our workaday world, we are all dreaming.

We left her there. Thats the part that haunts me. We saw her need, and we ignored it. The bathroom was crowded. It was hot. I was waiting for my turn at the mirror to put on lipstick. I dont know why I only see the scene from two angles: looking down out of the corner of my eye while I do my makeup, and waiting with my back against the wall for my friends to finish washing their hands.

I dont know if she was a blonde, a brunette, or a redhead. I know that she was at the party. I think she was wearing an olive-green jacket, but actually, I might have made up that detail. I seem to be assembling her outfit partially from fact and partially from fiction, as if Im trying to dress her the way I used to dress my old Barbie dolls, make her look presentable, give her that dignity. My conscience is a fantastic prosecutor. After so many years, only the damning evidence remains. I was there. I saw it. I did nothing.

Fear is an exhausting emotion, and I was scared so often that first semester in college. It was overwhelming trying to find my classrooms in a maze of unfamiliar buildings. I was afraid to ask the other students what the professor meant when she said our reading was reserved in the library. I was too scared to use my zip card in the cafeteria line, in case there was a trick to it. Trying to look like I knew what I was doing was my constant priority.