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."
One Train
Kristin Hersh Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Smoky Spain
And I take off again
Then I take off again, smiling back
The engine is idling
And the car seems to be expanding
Weird
Blindfolded kissing
Looking for the truth in your tiny moves
I hate to loose
Four days in Spain
Spooky Spain
And you're my missing thing:
Too sweet and pointless
Complete and somewhere else
I was sick of being asked
I didn't want to to anyways
Sucking down mother's milk
Singing my throat away
It's not an awful secret, you know
It's just a secret
Spitting out your blue gum
Kissing your breath away
I wanted you to sleep with her and
Hate yourself instead of me
I wanted you untrue,
Hating yourself like me
After all, what am I missing
I haven't missed before,
Sucking down the precious lies
I should have swallowed way before?
In "One Train," by Kristin Hersh, the lyrics paint a picture of a person traveling in Spain while wrestling with emotional turmoil. The singer mentions spending four days in Spain, describing it as a "smoky," "spooky" place. The imagery of the engine idling and the car expanding creates a sense of displacement and unease, reflecting the singer's emotional state.
The song also touches on themes of desire and jealousy, with the singer expressing conflicting emotions about a past lover. The line "I wanted you to sleep with her and hate yourself instead of me" suggests a complicated feeling of wanting revenge on the lover while also wanting to be desired. The singer also sings about feeling sick of being asked about their emotions and feeling trapped by their own feelings.
Overall, "One Train" presents a complex and nuanced exploration of human emotions and relationships, using vivid imagery and metaphor to convey the singer's inner turmoil.
Line by Line Meaning
Four days in Spain
Reflecting on a recent trip to Spain
Smoky Spain
Describing the atmosphere or ambiance of Spain as smoky
And I take off again
Leaving Spain to go somewhere else
Then I take off again, smiling back
Leaving Spain with a sense of contentment or satisfaction
The engine is idling
Noticing that the car engine is running but not moving
And the car seems to be expanding
Feeling like the car is getting bigger, possibly due to anxiety or claustrophobia
Weird
Expressing confusion or uncertainty
Blindfolded kissing
Engaging in an intimate act without truly understanding the other person
Looking for the truth in your tiny moves
Trying to understand someone's intentions or emotions through small gestures or actions
I hate to lose
Feeling competitive or not wanting to be defeated
And you're my missing thing
Referring to someone or something as a missing piece or important part of life
Too sweet and pointless
Describing someone or something as attractive but not fulfilling or meaningful
Complete and somewhere else
Feeling like something is whole or perfect, but not within reach
I was sick of being asked
Feeling annoyed or frustrated by repetitive questions or requests
I didn't want to to anyways
Refusing to do something despite being asked multiple times
Sucking down mother's milk
Relating a personal experience of being breastfed as a child
Singing my throat away
Using singing as a way to express or cope with emotions
It's not an awful secret, you know
Revealing that there is a secret but it's not terribly serious or harmful
It's just a secret
Emphasizing that there is a secret but downplaying its significance
Spitting out your blue gum
Describing an intimate moment of sharing gum with someone else
Kissing your breath away
Having an emotional or intimate moment with someone else
I wanted you to sleep with her and
Expressing a desire for someone to be unfaithful as a way of dealing with one's own insecurities or jealousy
Hate yourself instead of me
Wishing that someone else could feel the same negative emotions as oneself
I wanted you untrue,
Expressing a desire for someone to be dishonest or untrustworthy
Hating yourself like me
Wishing that someone else could feel the same negative emotions as oneself
After all, what am I missing
Questioning what one is lacking in their life or relationships
I haven't missed before,
Reflecting on a feeling of emptiness or dissatisfaction that is new
Sucking down the precious lies
Believing in falsehoods or deceptions to make oneself feel better
I should have swallowed way before?
Regretting not recognizing or accepting the truth earlier
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Written by: CHICK COREA
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind