everything's a mess vs. the drugs don't work

A problem has been solved. Kitty Coen is only two albums and one EP into her amazing career. If I post a couple of album reviews, two things happen: the individual songs get diluted, and I face a summer without writing about Kitty any more. These things were unimaginable.

As I was diligently listening to these albums on repeat, week after week, I became aware of an influence that I suspect many Gen Z listeners are not as familiar with as Brit Gen Xers. To call Garbage an American band is laughably simplistic. To recall just how enormous they were in the 1990s is to smile. Their flame-haired lead singer, Scot Shirley Manson, very much reminds me of KC. The Garbage comparison covers both of today's songs and also others such as unfollow me.

Garbage peddled misery all day long in hits such as Only Happy When It Rains and Stupid Girl. They contributed a Bond movie theme. To infer that Shirley Manson might be stupid is a mortal sin. This was an outfit that knew who they were, they knew their fans, and they knew that boppiness might sell a few records but would be disingenous at best, and most likley dishonest. Both of the songs under review here hark back to that 90s Garbage heyday. Let's listen!

everything's a mess

My first experience of this song was after the Camden show. It wasn't part of the set so I put it on full blast in the car. A nice gentle song to end a memorable evening. Kitty seems younger here, or at least more naive than the battle-hardened witch in Conversations with the Moon. This song appears on HELLCAT but feels older somehow. It is very simple, too, a reminder that song lyrics are not poems. Songs like this are more about feelings and enhancing the music than philosophizing.

I never learned to trust the things you tell me
When you lie I wanna kill somebody
I know you've never really been sorry
But you could've faked it like me
Doing all this shit for my attention
Go and find a girl who wants to listen

There is so much hidden away in the lyrics at the beginning. Her extreme reaction to the other person's lies... contemplating murder... suggest the lies are regular. Even their apologies were hollow. The singer's response, rather than to kill, is to hide away in bed. Life just seems simpler on your own.

Everything's a mess, so I just lay in bed 'cause
By now I have figured out it's just better
To go alone when you take the last train home
If he wanted to he would, so just forget him

This is when she gets angry. The simmering is done, and rage takes over. She is screaming at full volume, outside in the night, screaming to... the moon?

So don't call me
I don't want you
And don't text me
I don't wanna talk
I can't be what you need
So won't you just fuck off?

It builds beautifully. Where you end up is not where you thought you were going when things started. In that respect, it is very much like the drugs don't work.

the drugs don't work

I heard this one live in London at a time when I didn't know Kitty and was not as familiar with her music. I pair this with everything's a mess because in many ways it is also two songs in one.

Arriving near the end of a live set, it is a moment of reflection and contemplation. A very quiet song indeed, one presumes. It showcases KC's voice, the tender side of her personality, and is accompanied only by a simple acoustic guitar with a few swoops from a pedal steel. It's nice enough, but is missing anger. The theme of not wanting to go out and socialise mirrors the lying in bed of everything's a mess.

I don't wanna go out
I don't wanna drink
I don't wanna roll one
But I don't wanna think
I went to the doctor
She asked me where it hurts
I said, "Well it's hard to tell
But these drugs don't work"

This is the moment when you start to realise how wrong you were. After a couple of minutes, the volume increases, as does the tempo. The acoustic guitar is suddenly building into something quite violent. Then those drums! Here comes the anger! The record is loud but in real life this is a very loud song indeed. Then there's some rave-style whistling or shrieking. You need to turn it up to hear that well.

Made me a crown of blue bonnets
Called me the queen of Texas
I knew it was a lie
But it felt so nice
If there was a pill to forget
I'd pop it twice as fast
'Cause it's a hard thing to swallow
That nothing good lasts, oh
Nothing good lasts, oh

If only for the contrast between the two halves of this song, it has since become one of my favourites on Conversations with the Moon, and one of my favourite KC songs of them all. Both songs hint at depression and mental illness as well as rage and fury. Listened to side by side they tell a compelling story.

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