The idea for this post was born of my accidental experiment with decaffeinated coffee a week or so ago. (You can read more about that here.) One of the completely random and wholly undeveloped thoughts that "seeped in and out of my foggy, throbbing brain" during the course of that experiment was the following: There are a lot of really good songs about women murdering men. I've decided to explore and defend this claim. Here's a list of the songs I was attempting to think about and some speculation as to why I/we enjoy them so much.
As always, if you know of other songs or can think of other reasons this premise is so engaging, post them at the bottom for me.
Aerosmith, Janie's Got A Gun: Aerosmith, a band not exactly known for its radical feminist consciousness, broke major rock n' roll ground in 1989 with this catchy little ditty. It tells the story of a girl (Janie) who takes revenge on her sexually abusive father by putting "a bullet in his brain." It is the only song on the list to break the elusive Top 10. (It peaked at #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1990.) It is also the only song on the list performed by a male vocalist.
Martina McBride, Independence Day: A song as beautiful, empowering and redemptive as this one comes along once in a generation. It tells the story of a mother who immolates her abusive husband and herself on the 4th of July in a final act of what her surviving daughter, the song's narrator, calls "revolution." Many country radio programmers were initially reluctant to spin the tune. It took Martina herself working the phones and personally pleading with station managers to get the song on the air. Today, it's a country music staple.
This article appears in Jan 7-13, 2009.