Kristin Hersh
Kristin Hersh (born August 7, 1966) is an American singer/songwriter. She i… Read Full Bio ↴Kristin Hersh (born August 7, 1966) is an American singer/songwriter. She is the lead singer and guitarist for alternative rock group Throwing Muses and the hardcore punk-influenced power trio 50 Foot Wave. She has written a memoir, titled Rat Girl, which was published in the USA by Penguin Books on August 31, 2010 and is co-founder of the non-profit, open-source software project for recording artists, CASH Music.
Early life
Born in Atlanta as Martha Kristin Hersh, she was raised in Newport, Rhode Island. She learned guitar at age nine from her father, and started writing songs soon after. As a teenager, she formed Throwing Muses in the early 1980s with stepsister Tanya Donelly and other high school friends that were subsequently replaced by bassist Leslie Langston and drummer David Narcizo.
Hersh has listed among her early musical influences The Raincoats, Talking Heads, Violent Femmes, Meat Puppets, Dead Kennedys, Hüsker Dü, Velvet Underground, R.E.M., and X. She has said her parents' albums by Patti Smith, the Carter Family, Stevie Wonder, Robert Johnson, Talking Heads, The Clash, Steve Miller, The Beatles, Philip Glass, and traditional music influenced her when she was growing up.
Throwing Muses and early solo work
Hersh began singing and writing most of Throwing Muses' songs in changing tempos, with Donelly also singing and writing some of the songs. Early in the band's career, Hersh became friends with classic star Betty Hutton while both were students at Salve Regina University. Hutton attended several Throwing Muses concerts.
The group was signed by the British 4AD Records label in 1986 and, after one album, signed a U.S. deal with Sire/Reprise Records in 1987. They began touring around the U.S. and Europe while recording critically acclaimed rock albums, with Hersh writing most of the songs.
Throwing Muses became a trio when Donelly left the group after 1991's well received The Real Ramona. In 1994, Hersh began an additional career on Sire/Reprise and 4AD as an acoustic solo performer, beginning with Hips and Makers, an album sparely arranged around her vocals, guitar, and a cellist, in contrast to the volatile, electric sound of her band work. Michael Stipe of R.E.M. made an appearance on this first solo album.
Hersh's solo songwriting style focuses some of the relationship subject matter on her family. While Hersh's work reflects her personal experience, she has said that she writes from a point of view outside of her personality. Stating that "songwriting is about shutting up instead of talking", Hersh has said that songs that appeal to her are those that "say things that I don't know yet and tell stories I may not have lived yet".
The New York Times pointed to Hersh's explorations of "rage, aggression and mental chaos" as evidence that there were at least a few female rock music artists by the early 1990s pushing against gender role boundaries to express "more than simply vulnerability or defiance" in their work.
Hersh, whose early publicity at times portrayed her as a tortured artist "channeling" her songs from her psyche, has mentioned that the "angry young woman" fascination of some writers in reviewing the work of female performers has at times led to cartoonish stereotypes, rather than three-dimensional portraits respecting their intelligence. By the mid-1990s, journalists acknowledged that the breadth of her "fierce, quirky, and imaginative" lyrical style included explorations of "emotional and physical love" combined with "elliptical puzzlement".
After receiving some airplay and major media coverage for Throwing Muses album University in 1995, Hersh moved to Rykodisc for her 1996 Throwing Muses album, Limbo, and her 1998 solo album, Strange Angels. In order to better control her career and the distribution of her recorded material she created the ThrowingMusic label with husband/manager Billy O'Connell in 1996. This enabled her to co-release certain Hersh-related projects, including an ongoing download subscription service called Works in Progress (WIP) for releases available only through the Kristin Hersh website; which serves as a "listener powered" gateway to all of her projects.
Later career
In 1999, Hersh also participated in Throwing Muses drummer David Narcizo's Lakuna solo project album release, Castle of Crime.
In 2001, she released the Sunny Border Blue solo album, on which she again played nearly all instruments. She has described this album as having even more intensity than her previous works, as she continued her pursuit of songwriting as being in part a way to transform "ugly feelings" into art.
Hersh's recorded and live performances in recent years have occasionally included appearances with like-minded alternative artists like Vic Chesnutt, Willard Grant Conspiracy, Grant Lee Phillips, and John Doe.
In 2003, she released The Grotto, an acoustic solo album of song sketches with personal lyrics set in Providence, Rhode Island, with Andrew Bird on violin and Howe Gelb on piano. On the same date a self-titled album by her Throwing Muses group was also released, the first since Limbo. Both were recorded at Steve Rizzo's studio in Rhode Island.
Also in 2003, she formed a power rock trio 50 Foot Wave, when Narcizo was unable to tour on a full-time basis due to other commitments. Her touring appearances and recording efforts in 2004 and 2005 centered around both 50 Foot Wave and her solo career.
In 2005, Hersh recorded a cover version of the Pixies' "Wave of Mutilation" for American Laundromat Records 80's film tribute.
In January 2007, Hersh released her first solo album in four years, entitled Learn to Sing Like a Star.
On November 26, 2007, Hersh announced the opening of CASH Music. The subscriber-based, direct-to-consumer model had its first year-long project in the form of what was supposed to be an album called Speedbath, which was released one song per month for free at Kristin's CASH website. 50 Foot Wave also released an EP titled Power+Light through the CASH organization. January 2009 began another series of one track per month for free on the website, and the tracks wound up cohering without the song "Speedbath" at all; the new record, Crooked, was released in 2010. It was available to buy as a hardback book which included essays on the songs and a link to download the album and related tracks.
Hersh has written and illustrated a children's book called Toby Snax.
In 2008, Hersh recorded a cover of Neil Young's "Like a Hurricane" for the American Laundromat Records charity CD "Cinnamon Girl - Women Artists Cover Neil Young for Charity".
A second collection of Appalachian folk songs, The Shady Circle, is expected to be released. Live recordings of the songs have been available since late 2008.
In 2010, Hersh released her memoir, Rat Girl, which covers events from early 1985 through early 1986, when she was in her late teens, and was referred to by Rolling Stone as "one of "The 25 Greatest Rock Memoirs of All Time". The UK version of the book, released in early 2011, is entitled Paradoxical Undressing. The book covers topics such as the meaning behind many of her songs and the early stages of the Throwing Muses.
Musical style
Hersh's music is known for its chords, sonic treatments, and a vocal style ranging from softly melodic singing to impassioned screaming. Some of her signature contributions to popular music include addressing the complexities of life through impressionistic, sometimes hallucinatory lyrics about everyday feelings and varying mental states. A few of her songwriting subjects have included childbirth ("Hysterical Bending"), love ("Tar Kissers", "Lavender"), surreal vignettes ("Delicate Cutters", "Fish"), death ("Limbo"), emotional anguish ("The Letter"), loss of custody of her first son ("Candyland"), and the shedding of a relationship's anxiety ("Snake Oil").
Hersh has used images such as apples, water, diamonds, eyes, the sea, snow, ice, rain, fire, the sun, parking lots, sand, and cowboys. On occasion she has used historical figures like anorexic suicide Ellen West as metaphors in depicting a state of mind. Eccentric characters encountered in her family's travels have made occasional appearances in songs such as "Ruthie's Knocking"; a 2005 live solo set list included a then-untitled song ("Under The Gun") about a "parrot lady" character she met while visiting Lake Michigan.
Some interviews have described Hersh's early drive to perform as due to hearing sounds in her mind so that her songs began to "write themselves", becoming at times their own separate presences in her life, inner voices haunting her. She has stated that hearing these "pieces of songs" clanging together in her mind compelled her to take the pieces apart and craft songs from them. "If I don't turn ideas into songs, they can get stuck in me and make me sick," she said in a 1995 interview with AOL's Critics' Choice electronic music magazine. "That's the way a song hits you right here, right here [she motions to the heart and gut] instead of in your brain because the words themselves are all real sweaty, color, action words, so they just go bangbangbang. They're not supposed to make you think and try to figure out some puzzle. People think that I'm trying to trick them, that I have some thing I could write down and I haven't done it and I've just given them a bunch of poetry instead. I find it to be the clearest way to talk. It's like the way little kids talk because they have no filler words and no overriding thoughts to color your impression of what's happening in a song."
Early life
Born in Atlanta as Martha Kristin Hersh, she was raised in Newport, Rhode Island. She learned guitar at age nine from her father, and started writing songs soon after. As a teenager, she formed Throwing Muses in the early 1980s with stepsister Tanya Donelly and other high school friends that were subsequently replaced by bassist Leslie Langston and drummer David Narcizo.
Hersh has listed among her early musical influences The Raincoats, Talking Heads, Violent Femmes, Meat Puppets, Dead Kennedys, Hüsker Dü, Velvet Underground, R.E.M., and X. She has said her parents' albums by Patti Smith, the Carter Family, Stevie Wonder, Robert Johnson, Talking Heads, The Clash, Steve Miller, The Beatles, Philip Glass, and traditional music influenced her when she was growing up.
Throwing Muses and early solo work
Hersh began singing and writing most of Throwing Muses' songs in changing tempos, with Donelly also singing and writing some of the songs. Early in the band's career, Hersh became friends with classic star Betty Hutton while both were students at Salve Regina University. Hutton attended several Throwing Muses concerts.
The group was signed by the British 4AD Records label in 1986 and, after one album, signed a U.S. deal with Sire/Reprise Records in 1987. They began touring around the U.S. and Europe while recording critically acclaimed rock albums, with Hersh writing most of the songs.
Throwing Muses became a trio when Donelly left the group after 1991's well received The Real Ramona. In 1994, Hersh began an additional career on Sire/Reprise and 4AD as an acoustic solo performer, beginning with Hips and Makers, an album sparely arranged around her vocals, guitar, and a cellist, in contrast to the volatile, electric sound of her band work. Michael Stipe of R.E.M. made an appearance on this first solo album.
Hersh's solo songwriting style focuses some of the relationship subject matter on her family. While Hersh's work reflects her personal experience, she has said that she writes from a point of view outside of her personality. Stating that "songwriting is about shutting up instead of talking", Hersh has said that songs that appeal to her are those that "say things that I don't know yet and tell stories I may not have lived yet".
The New York Times pointed to Hersh's explorations of "rage, aggression and mental chaos" as evidence that there were at least a few female rock music artists by the early 1990s pushing against gender role boundaries to express "more than simply vulnerability or defiance" in their work.
Hersh, whose early publicity at times portrayed her as a tortured artist "channeling" her songs from her psyche, has mentioned that the "angry young woman" fascination of some writers in reviewing the work of female performers has at times led to cartoonish stereotypes, rather than three-dimensional portraits respecting their intelligence. By the mid-1990s, journalists acknowledged that the breadth of her "fierce, quirky, and imaginative" lyrical style included explorations of "emotional and physical love" combined with "elliptical puzzlement".
After receiving some airplay and major media coverage for Throwing Muses album University in 1995, Hersh moved to Rykodisc for her 1996 Throwing Muses album, Limbo, and her 1998 solo album, Strange Angels. In order to better control her career and the distribution of her recorded material she created the ThrowingMusic label with husband/manager Billy O'Connell in 1996. This enabled her to co-release certain Hersh-related projects, including an ongoing download subscription service called Works in Progress (WIP) for releases available only through the Kristin Hersh website; which serves as a "listener powered" gateway to all of her projects.
Later career
In 1999, Hersh also participated in Throwing Muses drummer David Narcizo's Lakuna solo project album release, Castle of Crime.
In 2001, she released the Sunny Border Blue solo album, on which she again played nearly all instruments. She has described this album as having even more intensity than her previous works, as she continued her pursuit of songwriting as being in part a way to transform "ugly feelings" into art.
Hersh's recorded and live performances in recent years have occasionally included appearances with like-minded alternative artists like Vic Chesnutt, Willard Grant Conspiracy, Grant Lee Phillips, and John Doe.
In 2003, she released The Grotto, an acoustic solo album of song sketches with personal lyrics set in Providence, Rhode Island, with Andrew Bird on violin and Howe Gelb on piano. On the same date a self-titled album by her Throwing Muses group was also released, the first since Limbo. Both were recorded at Steve Rizzo's studio in Rhode Island.
Also in 2003, she formed a power rock trio 50 Foot Wave, when Narcizo was unable to tour on a full-time basis due to other commitments. Her touring appearances and recording efforts in 2004 and 2005 centered around both 50 Foot Wave and her solo career.
In 2005, Hersh recorded a cover version of the Pixies' "Wave of Mutilation" for American Laundromat Records 80's film tribute.
In January 2007, Hersh released her first solo album in four years, entitled Learn to Sing Like a Star.
On November 26, 2007, Hersh announced the opening of CASH Music. The subscriber-based, direct-to-consumer model had its first year-long project in the form of what was supposed to be an album called Speedbath, which was released one song per month for free at Kristin's CASH website. 50 Foot Wave also released an EP titled Power+Light through the CASH organization. January 2009 began another series of one track per month for free on the website, and the tracks wound up cohering without the song "Speedbath" at all; the new record, Crooked, was released in 2010. It was available to buy as a hardback book which included essays on the songs and a link to download the album and related tracks.
Hersh has written and illustrated a children's book called Toby Snax.
In 2008, Hersh recorded a cover of Neil Young's "Like a Hurricane" for the American Laundromat Records charity CD "Cinnamon Girl - Women Artists Cover Neil Young for Charity".
A second collection of Appalachian folk songs, The Shady Circle, is expected to be released. Live recordings of the songs have been available since late 2008.
In 2010, Hersh released her memoir, Rat Girl, which covers events from early 1985 through early 1986, when she was in her late teens, and was referred to by Rolling Stone as "one of "The 25 Greatest Rock Memoirs of All Time". The UK version of the book, released in early 2011, is entitled Paradoxical Undressing. The book covers topics such as the meaning behind many of her songs and the early stages of the Throwing Muses.
Musical style
Hersh's music is known for its chords, sonic treatments, and a vocal style ranging from softly melodic singing to impassioned screaming. Some of her signature contributions to popular music include addressing the complexities of life through impressionistic, sometimes hallucinatory lyrics about everyday feelings and varying mental states. A few of her songwriting subjects have included childbirth ("Hysterical Bending"), love ("Tar Kissers", "Lavender"), surreal vignettes ("Delicate Cutters", "Fish"), death ("Limbo"), emotional anguish ("The Letter"), loss of custody of her first son ("Candyland"), and the shedding of a relationship's anxiety ("Snake Oil").
Hersh has used images such as apples, water, diamonds, eyes, the sea, snow, ice, rain, fire, the sun, parking lots, sand, and cowboys. On occasion she has used historical figures like anorexic suicide Ellen West as metaphors in depicting a state of mind. Eccentric characters encountered in her family's travels have made occasional appearances in songs such as "Ruthie's Knocking"; a 2005 live solo set list included a then-untitled song ("Under The Gun") about a "parrot lady" character she met while visiting Lake Michigan.
Some interviews have described Hersh's early drive to perform as due to hearing sounds in her mind so that her songs began to "write themselves", becoming at times their own separate presences in her life, inner voices haunting her. She has stated that hearing these "pieces of songs" clanging together in her mind compelled her to take the pieces apart and craft songs from them. "If I don't turn ideas into songs, they can get stuck in me and make me sick," she said in a 1995 interview with AOL's Critics' Choice electronic music magazine. "That's the way a song hits you right here, right here [she motions to the heart and gut] instead of in your brain because the words themselves are all real sweaty, color, action words, so they just go bangbangbang. They're not supposed to make you think and try to figure out some puzzle. People think that I'm trying to trick them, that I have some thing I could write down and I haven't done it and I've just given them a bunch of poetry instead. I find it to be the clearest way to talk. It's like the way little kids talk because they have no filler words and no overriding thoughts to color your impression of what's happening in a song."
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Kristin Hersh Lyrics
2.I Never Will Marry One day as I rambled down by the seashore The wind…
37 Hours By now, I should know where you're going By now I…
A Cleaner Light A high That's a swell take on this situation I was trying…
A Loon Some store I'm not going back there any more Wandered in…
Aching For You Chinese food and your sleeping back We're born-again losers…
Amazing Grace Amazing Grace How sweet the sound That saved a wretch like m…
Amica Montana The baby's so simian I guess we never evolved completely Y…
Around Dusk around dusk you walk the seven blocks to paradise and thro…
Banks Of The Ohio My love asked me, to take a walk Just to walk,…
Baseball Field Lovely empty baseball field, just one of the places to…
Beestung Start with your fingers they finger the change That carries …
Bliss Warm on your cold heart Cool on your hot head A worn…
Breathe In breathe in 'cause breathing is what you do converged roads m…
Caffeine The best of us puking The rest of us not doing…
Can the Circle Be Unbroken (One, two) I was standing By the window On a dark and…
Candyland I lost a boy And now I look for him Through every…
Cartoons This war's OK In a sweet old fashioned way Like a game…
Cathedral Heat Arrest the boy Warm between the eyes As he jackknifes into…
Cheech's Song I've been waiting, been waiting.…
Clay Feet This is no time to fuck up Scooting around the linoleum On…
Close Your Eyes You can't make it You can't cry You can't make it home…
Cold Water Coming That filthy stare He's on a tear Cold water coming for the…
Costa Rica Eyes in the back of your head Ear to the ground Love…
Cuckoo Oh the cuckoo she's a pretty bird She wobbles when she…
Day Glo Up this way down under the ocean Tumbled in anger by…
Deep Wilson Slipping down railings And balconies With a sleepy ease I ne…
Delicate Cutters This is another Throwing Muses song. Don't say that, it's so…
Down in the Willow Garden Down in the willow garden Where me and my love did…
Echo White label on the backseat Glows an artificial green I crav…
Elizabeth June the ground's on fire the ground's on fire and so are you …
Ether I would bet You don't care So I pray to…
Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except For Me And My Monkey Come on come on come on come on Come on is…
Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey Come on, come on Come on, come on Come on it's such…
Faith Was it me, or the cold? Made you give up hope Made…
Firepile This is him, when I begin Call him tied, call him…
Flipside There's always drooling zombies Or at least on dick I'm havi…
Flooding I can pinpoint the moment you closed your eyes And said…
Fly When he stares, it's like he's splitting hairs I'm a wreck…
fly around my blue eyed girl Fly around my blue-eyed girl Fly around my Daisy Fly around …
Fog Walk a mile, then walk another mile When you hit the…
Fortune i left you cracking up in the east river like some…
Fox Point pray for who pretty please who knows what crowded, empty cro…
Gazebo Tree That sky is a-shine with sheen, those eyes are a…
Gin tempting to finish this disaster under midnight sun hope, gi…
Gut Pageant That fine fever brought us here Lambasted eyeballs When we…
Halfway Home a nasal voice in the background "get away from me, get…
Heaven In the race but out of step You struggle to hold…
Hips and Makers Rocking on the ocean Rocking on the sea Every bird flies…
Home Hey again, up for a spin? Pretty rain make you smile This…
Hope I know I don't want you, I feel broken and…
Houdini Blues Oh no don't you put me in that box You know…
Husk Terrible wine Set you free Damn slap-happy sleep c'mon out, …
I Never Will Marry One day as I rambled down by the seashore The wind…
ice Damp and sour skulled We land with a thud 8 hours off…
in shock Pinned by a dream state You are fearless And your empty arms…
Jesus Christ Angels from the realms of glory Stars shone bright above Roy…
Krait in a suburban desert a fast food high we swipe at peeling…
Lady Godiva Weed, California we jump out of the van like we can…
Lethe you again my only friend down the channel we call it going c…
Like You Excuse me, a doormat is good honest work Only the bored…
Listerine Listerine covers your tracks Doesn't do shit for the facts …
Little Birdy Little birdy, little birdy What makes you fly so high? It's …
Loon Some store I'm not going back there any more Wandered in…
Loud Mouth it's dark in here but we don't care hot, lost in…
Mama's Gonna Buy Mama's gonna buy him a little lapdog Mama's gonna buy him…
Me and My Charms You can come back When you want Just know that I'll be…
Measure Do you have a face I can measure the day by How…
Milk Street You were good You were kind You were drunk all…
Mississippi Kite you paint your own tv on the wall carve out insects…
Moan in a deep cold you can't be brave in a deep cold you…
Morning Birds i couldn't sleep anyway the hole you left is full of…
nerve endings Nerve endings mutiny Put a rock into my brain I feel almos…
No Shade In Shadow No Shade in Shadow it was feast or famine that day…
One Train Four days in Spain Smoky Spain And I take off again Then …
Pale Before I go to you I never wash my neck 'Cause…
Panic Pure My earliest memory Is of holding up a sparkler High up…
peggy lee Peggy Lee in between midnight and sleep And the sky over…
Pennyroyal Tea ( Nirvana Cover ) I'm on my time with everyone I have…
Poor Ellen Smith Come all you kind people, my story to hear What happened…
Poor Wayfaring Stranger I'm just a poor wayfaring stranger I'm wandered through a w…
Pretty Polly Polly, pretty Polly, come go along with me Polly, pretty Pol…
Rock Candy Brains Must've been on mushrooms when you wrote that pile of…
Rubidoux the freeway's freeway close i laugh from the back the race…
Ruby Everybody was so pretty there And up and jumping around An…
San Francisco Breakfast at the movies Gatorade And blackjack on the bed G…
Shake I like you when I'm in the mood As the crow…
Silica Let the ache out Spread it around You want to fly him…
Silver Sun He nears suspiciously As panic enters Geography for beginne…
Sinkhole Well it's sundown in the sinkhole, It's sunrise up on the…
Slippershell you soft soap the soft-shelled the porous morons like me …
Snake Oil Well I never I never saw Anybody move like that before Why d…
Sno Cat A man made of butterfat Careening around on a sno-cat And I…
Some Catch Flies When he stares, it's like he's splitting hairs I'm a wreck…
Spain Four days in Spain Smoky Spain And I take off again Then I…
Speedbath in the boiling grip of bad love i was dizzy with…
Spring Nothing like chrome when it shines No better weather to driv…
SRB Head first into the head board I'm shatter proof The crani…
Stained I guess you heard, hell you're so weird Like a spider,…
Static your mouth fell out of the sky and suddenly i had…
Sugar Baby You're a sight, you look like Someone dressed as you What …
Sugarbaby You're a sight you look like Someone dressed as you What d…
Summer Salt Let's back up and act like we're sober Newborn clean Head ov…
Sundrops You can't get any more sunshine I can't get over how…
Sweet Roseanne Sweet Rosey-anne, sweet Rosey-anne Bye bye, sweet Rosey-anna…
Teeth I could get a piece of meat from a barren…
The Cuckoo Oh the cuckoo she's a pretty bird She wobbles when she…
The Key Lightning and foam make a pelican fly Copper and snow make…
The Letter September 29, 1984 Dear so and so Gather me up because…
the thin man We're just a little starving Two feet away and I can't…
Three Nights Drunk [One, two , three!] The first night that I come home…
Torque my lip gloss froze off outside the airport on a hard bench…
Trouble Trouble Oh trouble set me free I have seen your face And it'…
Tuesday Night When you sleep you tell me off I told you…
Uncle June & Aunt Kiyoti Lying all night, screaming in pain Defending the cross in th…
Uncle June and Aunt Kiyoti Lying all night, screaming in pain Defending the cross in t…
Under the Gun My heart goes out to you A lover on a night…
Vanishing Twin I feel the tug of war I fight the fight But I…
Velvet Days Velvet Days you make your little way Pouring rain make that…
Vertigo And in the subsequent solitude Flat on your backs again We…
Vitamins V Pour tea and death by mosquito And vitamins V Home in the…
Wave of Mutilation Cease to resist, giving my goodbye Drive my car into the…
What'll We Do With the Baby-o What'll we do with the baby? What'll we do with the…
When the Levee Breaks If it keeps on raining the levee's gotta break If it…
White Suckers We were awake together all night long Sharing paraphernalia…
White Trash Moon The neighbors dog won't let you sleep Try not to stare…
Whole Heap of Little Horses Go to sleep, go to sleep Go to sleep little baby When…
wild vanilla Wild vanilla Clean dreams downcast eyes If you lived here …
William's Cut It was all passion misunderstood All passion mislaid I'm on …
Winter How do you talk again I forgot Like sand in naked flame Oh…
You Cage Oh the cuckoo she's a pretty bird She wobbles when she…
Your Dirty Answer You know how it feels when the real world encroaches Rubbing…
Your Ghost If I walk down this hallway, tonight, It's too quiet, So I…