Tag: liz phair

The Mastersons, ‘Don’t Tell Me to Smile’

Posted on by Editor

“You should smile more.”

Any woman who’s ever walked around with less than a permanent, pageant-ready, toothy grin has heard this many times: Smile more, and you’ll look more beautiful. Smile more, don’t be so serious. Smile more, and you could be president. Yes, even Hillary Clinton wasn’t immune, constantly told by pundits and politicians to turn her frown upside down (and then, when she did, she was told she smiled too much). But really, it’s bigger than the appearance of a happy face. There’s a universal discomfort with intelligent, strong women, and, in so many ways, telling one to “smile more” is a nicer way to say that we should focus on being pretty, not smart. Pretty, and not powerful.

“Don’t Tell Me to Smile” from husband-wife duo the Mastersons was written by Eleanor Whitmore after a woman — yes, another woman — yelled at her to smile more from the crowd. From their new record, Transient Lullaby, it’s about being sick of hearing others tell you how to appear or act when they really should be listening instead of looking. Here, Whitmore’s talking about life on the stage, but it’s a universal experience she shares, told with a bit of Liz Phair sass in a rich, roots-rock package and a lush hook. “Don’t tell me to smile. I will if I want,” Whitmore sings alongside backing from her partner Chris Masterson. Pretty, and powerful.  

Lauren Barth, ‘Mama Don’t Cry’

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“It ain’t easy to be a girl in the USA,” sings Lauren Barth on “Mama Don’t Cry,” the first release off of her debut album Forager, the video for which is premiering exclusively on the BGS. And you know what? It ain’t. As Barth sings on “Mama,” the American story — unless you’re like our president (aka a white man with a big bank account and a bigger ego) — is often a harsh and difficult one, not filled with dogs and dreams but violence and broken hearts. Born in California but now living in Tulsa, Barth drinks from the well that nurtures Oklahoma’s other modern folk treasures, like John Moreland and John Fullbright, who tap easily and steadily into the human condition. For Barth, it’s the musical heroes — “gods inside the radio,” as she sings — who keep us steady in a world that would rather dust the imperfect and uncomfortable under the rug than confront it head on.

Barth tackles a lot of these imperfect and uncomfortable ideas on “Mama Don’t Cry” and in the video that accompanies it with its spiraling, psychedelic twist: far too many guns, one too many funerals, people who belong in their mother’s arms, not jail cells. “Gimme a break,” she sings with the folk steadiness of Lucinda Williams and the slack sly of Liz Phair. We all want a break … from oppression, prejudice, and hate, to name a few. Sometimes, it just feels like it all keeps rising instead of receding. Luckily, folk music is stepping up to the plate not to dry our tears, but to give us hope that at least someone, anyone, is listening to us wail.