Interview with Mary Timony
May. 3rd, 2007 02:14 pmCheck it out:
My VenusZine.com interview with Mary Timony (formerly of Helium).
http://venuszine.com/
“With Helium, I was strongly thinking about women's empowerment and a lot of the song lyrics had to do with that,” Timony says. Yet she insists that for The Shapes We Make, she didn’t put much thought into her lyrics — they just came tumbling out in a stream-of-consciousness way. Regardless, her feminist leanings come to the surface, especially in a song like “Pause/Off,” in which she berates a protestor outside a pharmacy and commands anti-abortion politicians to "Get your laws off my body."
Taking a lyrical stand like this makes the 37-year-old a little nervous. “I remember after The Dirt of Luck came out, [the reaction] was just awful,” she says. “The way I was treated by a lot of male writers. I was labeled as the crazy girl who’s really angry. It was a weird time. I was only 24, and there were women writers who totally understood. I think that whole experience of talking to so many guy writers who didn’t get it — who were like, ‘What up with you? Why are you crazy?’ — it just made me not want to talk about it. I'm just a little bit anxious about that line in that song. It’s something I really care about, but having to deal with people’s negative reaction can suck.”
My VenusZine.com interview with Mary Timony (formerly of Helium).
http://venuszine.com/
“With Helium, I was strongly thinking about women's empowerment and a lot of the song lyrics had to do with that,” Timony says. Yet she insists that for The Shapes We Make, she didn’t put much thought into her lyrics — they just came tumbling out in a stream-of-consciousness way. Regardless, her feminist leanings come to the surface, especially in a song like “Pause/Off,” in which she berates a protestor outside a pharmacy and commands anti-abortion politicians to "Get your laws off my body."
Taking a lyrical stand like this makes the 37-year-old a little nervous. “I remember after The Dirt of Luck came out, [the reaction] was just awful,” she says. “The way I was treated by a lot of male writers. I was labeled as the crazy girl who’s really angry. It was a weird time. I was only 24, and there were women writers who totally understood. I think that whole experience of talking to so many guy writers who didn’t get it — who were like, ‘What up with you? Why are you crazy?’ — it just made me not want to talk about it. I'm just a little bit anxious about that line in that song. It’s something I really care about, but having to deal with people’s negative reaction can suck.”