no. 42 — Patience by Mannequin Pussy
I remember downloading Mannequin Pussy’s 2016 album Romantic, and my boyfriend expressed surprise that I was getting into them. Fast forward a few months and he comes to me playing ‘Drunk II’ off their newest album Patience. This is a common theme in our relationship where I’ll show him music, he doesn’t really react, and then three months later he’ll say “oh listen to this song I found” and it’s something I showed him. I tease him for this constantly and feel very superior every time it happens, but this time around I couldn’t even be mad because I hadn’t heard the song yet and it was so fucking good.
“You don’t look at me, you don’t talk to me, and I know it’s cause you’re weak maybe you feel guilty, it’s pathetic.” It’s so FUCKING satisfying to sing along with that. ‘Drunk II’ is my favorite song off this album, and I listen to it whenever I feel an indignant, stubborn rage that I need vindicated. The song walks the line between that indignation and the vulnerability behind it. “Everyone says to me, Missy you’re so strong, but what if I don’t wanna be?” I’m sorry but is that not the exact nugget of truth behind most outbursts? You put up a front so you don’t give away how scared you are. Not to be too corny, but every time I listen to this song I feel tingles over my body. When I scream along with it in my car, I usually feel like crying, but am too high on the sheer brilliance of the song to fully indulge that sadness.
In a Rolling Stone interview, Marisa Dabice says that each song she wrote on this album was an attempt to come to peace with her memories. She speaks of catharsis, of creating a space among the white, (cis)male punk scene for herself. She says that screaming onstage is what helped her to get through her turbulent teenage years, having been diagnosed with cancer at age 15 in the oppressive Connecticut suburbs. You can feel that catharsis, that search for peace, within every song on this album, and it feels fucking good. I feel like I’m letting go of something while still being validated in it every time I listen. Mannequin Pussy isn’t just a woman screaming through her trauma on stage[1]. Dabice has carefully crafted all 26 minutes of this album to be the exact ride through every stage of grief that it is.
Her lyrics are at times sexy and always raw. Her voice oscillates between vulnerability and rage. On ‘Who You Are’ she sings, “who taught you to hate the way you are?” and I just think, regardless of who the subject of that line is, it hits. I am trying to ask myself this question every second of the day. I’m trying to dig beneath the core of my own self-loathing and pull it out by the root.
On ‘Clams’, a 30 second song of fury, she sings “I fought but I did not win / I just want my money.” And lord god is that not how I’m feeling right now in the tides of corporate America, painfully aware of the disparities between my world view and the company’s. When you get to the last song, ‘In Love Again’, it feels like an 80’s rock ballad, something that could be in Dirty Dancing if the movie was slightly more punk. It’s a positive note to end the album on, though bittersweet because of all the pain and emotion that came before it. I cannot fucking wait to be in the middle of a crowd when this is played live. I cannot wait for the next drive I go on to scream along with every single song on this album. This album fucking rocks, and if you haven’t heard it yet, I really suggest you change that ASAP.
[1] Though frankly, even if it was, I’d still be down for that.
