American Flag, by Cat Power.
Sometimes you just have go back to the source, and Cat Power for me, is an empty, warm, New York City apartment, distortion coming through the vinyl records and the warped hardwood floors, and the leaky foam around the garbage-nook-level apartment, the Laverne & Shirley apartment, my mother called it, because you could see people walking by outside if you ever dared peek through the sheets I nailed over the windows.
This song is from Moon Pix, and well, let’s let Wikipedia do some of the talking here:
Much of the album was written in a single night, following a hallucinatory nightmare Marshall experienced while staying at a farmhouse in South Carolina. Prior to that, Marshall had intended to retire from music.
what
while alone in the South Carolina farmhouse she shared with her then-boyfriend, Bill Callahan
what??
Oh and The Dirty Three accompany her on most of this record, and my goodness gracious, that is one of the reasons it grabs me by the guts.
Had a little fun with this one. My favorite part is the second acoustic track with garage band distortion applied, but the background hum of the guitar sounded like a jet engine in the quiet parts (hmm maybe that was the space heater?) so I had to crank up the noise gating to the point where there’s like no sustain and the guitar sounds nice and chopping.