5. Penelope HoustonTongue
I discovered Penelope Houston from one of those books that I picked up in a bookshop after a signing, where they say ‘Do you want anything? You just signed $20,000 worth of books for us. Would you like something to read on the plane to the next place?’ And I picked up a book of American outlaw musicians. Don’t remember the title. It had a CD in the back. And one of the people on there was Penelope Houston. And I loved the song. I downloaded all her albums, and Tongue was the one that really stuck with me. It’s literate, smart post-punk, rocky, faintly raunchy. If you listen to the title track, there is so much glorious female fury in it. And love and lust. And there aren’t a lot of songs by women about a specific kind of lust. And the lyrics – and I’m always such a sucker for lyrics – of that song and another song on there called ‘Worm’ which is a giant song of insult and pain. But ‘Tongue’ has an amazing verse about this Leonard Cohen-type up on a stage. “His voice is soft and riddled with regret/ And every single song he sings is named after a different girl. His wife of 20 years she keeps him yet/ And I’m sitting smiling thinking of your tongue… and me I’ve never touched it/ But I’d really like to suck it.” And it’s the most wonderful song about alienation and lust, she has a magnificent voice, I know almost nothing about her and think she’s brilliant.
