After arriving in New York City at the age of 16, she worked as a bar maid and go-go dancer at the Baby Doll Lounge on White street in Tribeca. Lydia met Alan Vega (who became her first friend in NYC) and Willy DeVille (who gave her the name 'Lunch' because she'd often been stealing lunch for The Dead Boys). Then she moved in for about a year with then-boyfriend James Chance (born James Siegfried) who had come to New York (from Milwaukee) in the last week of 1975. They lived at a funky two-room fifth-floor walk-up apartment on East 2nd street (between Avenue A and B) and at a tiny storefront on Twelfth street.
Lunch moved into a large communal household of artists and musicians in NYC, including Kitty Bruce, daughter of Lenny Bruce. After befriending the 'godfathers of punk' Suicide at Max's Kansas City, she founded the short-lived but influential No Wave band Teenage Jesus and the Jerks in 1976 with her artistic partner, James Chance. Both appeared on the seminal No Wave compilation No New York. Lunch later appeared on two songs on Chance's album Off White (credited to James White and the Blacks; Lunch used the pseudonym "Stella Rico") in 1978.
She appeared in two films directed by the husband and wife film-making team of Scott B and Beth B; In the short film Black Box (1978) she played an unnamed torturer, and in the feature length, neo-noir thriller Vortex (1982) she played a private detective named "Angel Powers". During this time, she also appeared in a number of films by Vivienne Dick, including She Had her Gun All Ready (1978) and Beauty Becomes The Beast (1979), co starring with Pat Place.
In the mid-'80s she formed her own recording and publishing company called "Widowspeak" on which she continued to release a slew of her own material, including songs and spoken word.
A self-avowed "confrontationalist", identified by the Boston Phoenix as "one of the 10 most influential performers of the '90s", Lunch's solo career featured collaborations with musicians such as J. G. Thirlwell, Kim Gordon, Thurston Moore, Nick Cave, Billy Ver Plank, Steven Severin, Robert Quine, Sadie Mae, Rowland S. Howard, Michael Gira, The Birthday Party, Einstürzende Neubauten, Sonic Youth, Die Haut and Black Sun Productions. She also acted in, wrote, and directed underground films, sometimes collaborating with underground filmmaker and musician Richard Kern (including several films, such as Fingered, in which she performed unsimulated sex acts), and more recently has recorded and performed as a spoken word artist, collaborating with such artists as Exene Cervenka, Henry Rollins, Don Bajema, Hubert Selby Jr., and Emilio Cubeiro, as well as authoring both traditional books and comix (with award-winning graphic novel artist Ted McKeever).
Simon Reynolds (author of Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978-1984) wrote: "And although 'affection' is possibly an odd word to use in reference to a bunch of nihilists, I do feel fond of the No Wave people. ... there are great moments throughout Lydia Lunch's long discography." Selected quotations:
I'm nihilistic, antagonistic, violent, horrible - but not obliterated, yet.
I would be humiliated if I found out that anything I did actually became a commercial success.
There’re enough happy assholes out there, why should I be another one in the line...
It seems to me, that for over two thousand years now; mad-men, maniacs, and would be messiahs have been pilfering, have been pillaging, have been plundering, and have been raping the entire planet; and the way I see it, Mother Nature is getting pretty pissed off.
No pornography exploits women. It exploits men. It’s the men that are made to look stupid, silly and ridiculous, chasing after the golden elixir. Women look beautiful, do what they wanna do and get paid for it.
The only way to define the art of Lydia Lunch is simply not to.
Dread
Lydia Lunch Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Where one awakes from dread to dread
Sleep does not put an end to dread
It's as if dread is both day and night
In a mobile disaster
Which allows everything to remain
Twisted in an endless twilight
Perpetual limbo where every somnambulant second
Of one's own fears
Fears made much too real
This close to the millennium
That final countdown to our own extinction
Plundered into a reality from which one will never return
Plundered into that shattered dreamscape
Of purgatory of paranoia, pestilence, petulance
Word becomes increasingly difficult to segregate good from evil
Living from the living dead
Bleak panorama where not even death
Not even death offers release
For what you wrought will come back to haunt
And haunt it does
What if death picks up where life left off
What if death picks up where life left off
Death picks up where life left off
An endless barrage of unbearable obstacles
A god forsaken terrain
Where lost souls find even less mercy, no mercy
And are still forced to reconcile
With what was left undone
As if the struggle never ends
The struggle never ends
As if there is not now or ever peace
Peace being foreign to our nature
The nature of the beast
Lydia Lunch's song "Dread" is a haunting depiction of the subterranean world of fear and anxiety that one can find themselves trapped in. The lyrics explore the idea that dread is an all-consuming force that is ever-present, even in sleep. The world of dread is one of perpetual limbo, where every moment is plagued by nightmarish preoccupations with one's own fears, which are made all too real in the increasingly bleak panorama of the late 20th century.
The imagery used in this song is vivid and unsettling, with references to a shattered dreamscape, purgatory, and pestilence. It suggests a world where not even death offers release, as the consequences of one's actions haunt them even beyond the grave. The line "What if death picks up where life left off" is particularly haunting, evoking the idea that the struggle and suffering of life may continue beyond the point of death itself.
Overall, "Dread" is a powerful exploration of the human condition, specifically the idea that we are all subject to the forces of fear and dread. It paints a dark and unsettling picture of a world where there is no escape from our own internal struggles, and where even death may not bring relief.
Line by Line Meaning
Dread, that subterranean world
The feeling of dread is like being in a dark, underground realm.
Where one awakes from dread to dread
One cannot escape their feelings of dread even when they wake up.
Sleep does not put an end to dread
Even when asleep, the feeling of dread persists.
It's as if dread is both day and night
Dread is a constant presence and not constrained by time.
In a mobile disaster
The feeling of dread is like being in a situation that is constantly changing and unstable.
Which allows everything to remain
Despite everything being in flux, the feeling of dread never goes away.
Twisted in an endless twilight
This constant feeling of dread creates a distorted view of reality that never goes away.
Perpetual limbo where every somnambulant second
The constant feeling of dread creates a state of being stuck, unable to move forward.
Is plagued by that nightmarish preoccupation
The feeling of dread is all-consuming and creates a state of fear and anxiety.
Of one's own fears
The feeling of dread is a manifestation of one's own deepest fears.
Fears made much too real
The feeling of dread takes on a life of its own and becomes unbearable.
This close to the millennium
The sense of impending doom is heightened by the apocalyptic sentiments of approaching the year 2000.
That final countdown to our own extinction
The feeling of dread encompasses a fear of the end of the world and humanity's own demise.
Plundered into a reality from which one will never return
The feeling of dread takes over and there is no escape from its grasp.
Plundered into that shattered dreamscape
The feeling of dread creates a sense of having a broken dreamscape that is impossible to repair.
Of purgatory of paranoia, pestilence, petulance
The feeling of dread creates a state of limbo filled with anxiety, disease, and irritability.
Word becomes increasingly difficult to segregate good from evil
The feeling of dread creates a distorted sense of morality, where it is hard to tell right from wrong.
Living from the living dead
The constant feeling of dread creates a sense of living but being dead inside.
Bleak panorama where not even death
The feeling of dread creates a grim outlook on life where death offers no relief from suffering.
Not even death offers release
The feeling of dread creates a sense of being trapped that not even death can free one from.
For what you wrought will come back to haunt
The feeling of dread creates a sense of punishment for past actions that will come back to haunt one.
And haunt it does
The feeling of dread creates a sense of being haunted by one's own past and fears.
What if death picks up where life left off
The feeling of dread creates a fear that the suffering and struggle will continue even after death.
Death picks up where life left off
The feeling of dread creates a sense of the struggle continuing even after one has died.
An endless barrage of unbearable obstacles
The feeling of dread creates a sense of being constantly bombarded by problems that are impossible to bear.
A god forsaken terrain
The feeling of dread creates a sense of a place without any hope or divine intervention.
Where lost souls find even less mercy, no mercy
The feeling of dread creates a place where one is abandoned and bereft of any mercy or compassion.
And are still forced to reconcile
Despite the feeling of dread, one still has to come to terms with their situation.
With what was left undone
The feeling of dread creates a sense of regret about things that were left unfinished.
As if the struggle never ends
The feeling of dread creates a sense of being stuck in a state of perpetual struggle.
The struggle never ends
The feeling of dread creates a sense of being stuck in an endless struggle that never resolves itself.
As if there is not now or ever peace
The feeling of dread creates a sense of there never being any peace or relief from suffering.
Peace being foreign to our nature
The feeling of dread creates a sense of peace being something that is unnatural and unattainable.
Contributed by Lila Y. Suggest a correction in the comments below.
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