just a heads up, for the special people who like juliana. she has an interview which you can download and enjoy.
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/episodes/...segments/117079
psst: juliana was just in a treatment center for eating disorder... tsk
but good news, she says in the interview that she's 1/2 into finishing her new album
ugh, if only liz was half as productive.
Full Version: juliana hatfield
Liz would have her album half finished too, but she spends some of her time eating! 
oooooooh oooooh
anorexia digs.. cuuuute.
anorexia digs.. cuuuute.
pp you should read her memoir then you might understand how neurotic and self-critical she is, and a lot of things, that would make her just another likely candidate for having an eating disorder, and hell I've known lots of women with them. Don't pick on Juliana please.
That's amazing that she's onto her next album, thanks for the link Fub.
That's amazing that she's onto her next album, thanks for the link Fub.
From Juliana's blog:
UNTIL I ALMOST DIED
Thank you all very very much for all the well wishes and prayers and encouragement and understanding. It helped me. I am now on the mend, doing better than before. Thank you.
By choosing this song, I don’t mean to say that I almost died. I was in bad shape but I wasn’t anywhere close to death, in my opinion. I just had to get my head screwed on better (and to put on a bit of weight).
I always manifest emotional distress psychosomatically. Anorexia is just one way. Over the years I’ve had a whole host of biologically unexplainable aches and pains crop up and then magically disappear. It’s never life-threatening but it’s disturbing all the same. Once, for example, I developed a blurry left eye. Or maybe it was the right eye. It lingered for a few weeks. It messed up my equilibrium. (Well, my mental equilibrium was already messed up — that’s why my eye went all funny — so what I mean to say is that my mental unbalance went on to affect my physical equilibrium, in an ocular sense. This is how I see it, anyway.) I took to wearing an eye patch after I nearly fell over while crossing a busy street on foot. I went through various tests and even a brainscan but doctors could find no reason for my one blurred eye. The eye finally went back to normal after I broke up with a guy I had been wanting to break up with and only then — when my eye cleared up immediately post-breakup — did I realize that there had been a completely reasonable explanation for the nagging dizziness: my brain was sending an unignorable message to my body, forcing me to confront the fact that I had to deal with this unresolved and pressing situation — the need to end an unhealthy, unfulfilling relationship — in my life. Breaking up with someone isn’t easy or fun and so I put it off and put it off and as soon as I finally made the difficult but necessary big step, I felt better all over.
And then there was the painful pain that appeared in my left hand after my fight with Brian in my book. Pain which disappeared as soon as Brian and I apologized to each other and made up.
Anorexia doesn’t start as a physical problem — losing weight is just a symptom of something that originates in the brain. It’s about control; trying to sort of half-consciously exert some control over something in our lives, when we feel that our emotions, or our lives, are out of control.
When the Blake Babies put together this song back in 2000 I wasn’t thinking of a literal or specific event in my life. Maybe I was unknowingly foreshadowing future difficulties (like what recently happened to me). But there was no actual definitive point at which I ever had a near-death experience. Rather, I meant to express that I’d been through pain and loss and had come through it feeling fragile and wounded, yes, but also newly hopeful and grounded. Tough experiences can enrich us, somehow, by enabling us to feel grateful for the things — and for the life — we do have. And trials can give us knowledge — about the world, about our mammalian brains, about our resilience, our self-forgiveness. Each painful experience helps us, if we let it, to be a little easier on ourselves.
In the song I also made up an abusive relationship scenario. “I” — the persona I took on in the song — was a former abusee and self-loather/harmer (“seeing a reason in a heavy hand”… a slap…a break”). She had escaped the abusive boyfriend/husband, escaped to a place where she was able to find some new, healthier, saner perspective.
I kind of wanted “violins” to be heard as “violence” (“keep the violins away/keep the violence away”) — as in “I’ve moved on from abuse (self- and other-inflicted) and from drama/sentimentality which can be represented by weepy strings.”
I used to really hate myself. More and more, I like myself and appreciate myself and even love myself and see that what I used to call flaws aren’t really flaws but are just me — who I am. It’s a nice feeling, when I’m feeling it. I used to think I was pitiful and pathetic and inadequate and unlovable and part of me still does, some days, but I am starting to believe that if someone can’t handle me (and I am a handful; a neurotic handful), and can’t accept me, warts and all, complexes and all, then I certainly don’t need to feel that I did anything wrong.
I want to be loved as I am now. With no conditions. If I never meet anyone who can love me like this, so be it. I’ve got a lifetime of practice at being alone. I’m an expert. I have a PhD in Solitude.
But, still, I’m not saying that everything is A-okay and that I am “well” now and that I have “fixed” my problems: sometimes I still think I could actually die from a lack of love and affection. I am very lonely. And I am very picky.
I am currently reading a fascinating book titled “A General Theory Of Love” by Doctors Lewis, Amini, and Lannon. In this book we learn that “studies demonstrate that solitary people have a vastly increased rate of premature death from all causes” and that monkeys raised in isolation are really screwed up and “cannot engage in reciprocal interactions with normal monkeys, who consistently reject them”; these screwed-up monkeys’ brains are maimed. And: “Self-mutilation is another of solitude’s legacies: these monkeys bite their own arms, bang their heads against the wall, and gouge out their eyes. Social environment even fixes the normal formation of such behavioral basics as eating and drinking.” And furthermore: “with their vulnerability to anxiety and depression, their social awkwardness and failure to attach as adults, these monkeys exhibit a close animal counterpart to the multifaceted misery that in human beings is labeled neurotic.” And one more thing: “We recognize instinctively that healthy humans are not loners.”
I won’t lie to you (at least not about the important stuff). I think I’m more confused than ever. But I’m not sure.
Evan played bass on this song (and on a few others, and sang on a handful — he was there in Indiana with us Blake Babies for the “God Bless…” sessions.) It made me feel a pang, for my old friend, listening again after so much time. Evan, where are you?
In “Waiting For Heaven” (from the same “God Bless the Blake Babies” album), I wanted “face” to be heard not only as “face” but as “phase”: “I’m on a wave coming down from a beautiful face/phase.” Same difference, really. This particular line means loss, and the tragic unraveling of love, of self-love, of companionship, of good times, of a good mood, of hope, of faith, of sweetness, of affection, of happiness, of confidence, of someone.
Whenever I sang “Waiting For Heaven” in front of a crowd, I felt I had to be careful to enunciate the word “heaven” at the tops of the choruses, and to make sure I leaned on the letter “h” at the beginning of the word, so that people didn’t mistake “heaven” for “Evan” and think that I was pleading, “Evan where are you?” because that’s not what the song is about; it’s way more existential than just one guy. And by the time I wrote these lyrics I was way past — years past — being in love with Evan. “Evan, where are you?” would be an easy misinterpretation to make, since Evan is singing with me on the song — he is not so much evoked as he is right fucking there with me and so it’s almost impossible to not think of him at that moment — and since people back in the day seemed to be so fascinated by the idea of me and Evan and “are they or aren’t they?” etc. and looking — in the songs — for clues and insight into what was or was not going on and maybe wanting to think that I was forever pining for the guy (I was not). I mean, I kind of was for a while but at the same time I kind of wasn’t. And then I really wasn’t at all anymore.
Some people also may conceivably be confused because I am addressing heaven as if heaven were a person (calling heaven “you”). I guess that means I’m talking to God. I do that a lot.
Next post: a happy or goofy or fun song. If I can find one among the tearjerkers.
UNTIL I ALMOST DIED
Thank you all very very much for all the well wishes and prayers and encouragement and understanding. It helped me. I am now on the mend, doing better than before. Thank you.
By choosing this song, I don’t mean to say that I almost died. I was in bad shape but I wasn’t anywhere close to death, in my opinion. I just had to get my head screwed on better (and to put on a bit of weight).
I always manifest emotional distress psychosomatically. Anorexia is just one way. Over the years I’ve had a whole host of biologically unexplainable aches and pains crop up and then magically disappear. It’s never life-threatening but it’s disturbing all the same. Once, for example, I developed a blurry left eye. Or maybe it was the right eye. It lingered for a few weeks. It messed up my equilibrium. (Well, my mental equilibrium was already messed up — that’s why my eye went all funny — so what I mean to say is that my mental unbalance went on to affect my physical equilibrium, in an ocular sense. This is how I see it, anyway.) I took to wearing an eye patch after I nearly fell over while crossing a busy street on foot. I went through various tests and even a brainscan but doctors could find no reason for my one blurred eye. The eye finally went back to normal after I broke up with a guy I had been wanting to break up with and only then — when my eye cleared up immediately post-breakup — did I realize that there had been a completely reasonable explanation for the nagging dizziness: my brain was sending an unignorable message to my body, forcing me to confront the fact that I had to deal with this unresolved and pressing situation — the need to end an unhealthy, unfulfilling relationship — in my life. Breaking up with someone isn’t easy or fun and so I put it off and put it off and as soon as I finally made the difficult but necessary big step, I felt better all over.
And then there was the painful pain that appeared in my left hand after my fight with Brian in my book. Pain which disappeared as soon as Brian and I apologized to each other and made up.
Anorexia doesn’t start as a physical problem — losing weight is just a symptom of something that originates in the brain. It’s about control; trying to sort of half-consciously exert some control over something in our lives, when we feel that our emotions, or our lives, are out of control.
When the Blake Babies put together this song back in 2000 I wasn’t thinking of a literal or specific event in my life. Maybe I was unknowingly foreshadowing future difficulties (like what recently happened to me). But there was no actual definitive point at which I ever had a near-death experience. Rather, I meant to express that I’d been through pain and loss and had come through it feeling fragile and wounded, yes, but also newly hopeful and grounded. Tough experiences can enrich us, somehow, by enabling us to feel grateful for the things — and for the life — we do have. And trials can give us knowledge — about the world, about our mammalian brains, about our resilience, our self-forgiveness. Each painful experience helps us, if we let it, to be a little easier on ourselves.
In the song I also made up an abusive relationship scenario. “I” — the persona I took on in the song — was a former abusee and self-loather/harmer (“seeing a reason in a heavy hand”… a slap…a break”). She had escaped the abusive boyfriend/husband, escaped to a place where she was able to find some new, healthier, saner perspective.
I kind of wanted “violins” to be heard as “violence” (“keep the violins away/keep the violence away”) — as in “I’ve moved on from abuse (self- and other-inflicted) and from drama/sentimentality which can be represented by weepy strings.”
I used to really hate myself. More and more, I like myself and appreciate myself and even love myself and see that what I used to call flaws aren’t really flaws but are just me — who I am. It’s a nice feeling, when I’m feeling it. I used to think I was pitiful and pathetic and inadequate and unlovable and part of me still does, some days, but I am starting to believe that if someone can’t handle me (and I am a handful; a neurotic handful), and can’t accept me, warts and all, complexes and all, then I certainly don’t need to feel that I did anything wrong.
I want to be loved as I am now. With no conditions. If I never meet anyone who can love me like this, so be it. I’ve got a lifetime of practice at being alone. I’m an expert. I have a PhD in Solitude.
But, still, I’m not saying that everything is A-okay and that I am “well” now and that I have “fixed” my problems: sometimes I still think I could actually die from a lack of love and affection. I am very lonely. And I am very picky.
I am currently reading a fascinating book titled “A General Theory Of Love” by Doctors Lewis, Amini, and Lannon. In this book we learn that “studies demonstrate that solitary people have a vastly increased rate of premature death from all causes” and that monkeys raised in isolation are really screwed up and “cannot engage in reciprocal interactions with normal monkeys, who consistently reject them”; these screwed-up monkeys’ brains are maimed. And: “Self-mutilation is another of solitude’s legacies: these monkeys bite their own arms, bang their heads against the wall, and gouge out their eyes. Social environment even fixes the normal formation of such behavioral basics as eating and drinking.” And furthermore: “with their vulnerability to anxiety and depression, their social awkwardness and failure to attach as adults, these monkeys exhibit a close animal counterpart to the multifaceted misery that in human beings is labeled neurotic.” And one more thing: “We recognize instinctively that healthy humans are not loners.”
I won’t lie to you (at least not about the important stuff). I think I’m more confused than ever. But I’m not sure.
Evan played bass on this song (and on a few others, and sang on a handful — he was there in Indiana with us Blake Babies for the “God Bless…” sessions.) It made me feel a pang, for my old friend, listening again after so much time. Evan, where are you?
In “Waiting For Heaven” (from the same “God Bless the Blake Babies” album), I wanted “face” to be heard not only as “face” but as “phase”: “I’m on a wave coming down from a beautiful face/phase.” Same difference, really. This particular line means loss, and the tragic unraveling of love, of self-love, of companionship, of good times, of a good mood, of hope, of faith, of sweetness, of affection, of happiness, of confidence, of someone.
Whenever I sang “Waiting For Heaven” in front of a crowd, I felt I had to be careful to enunciate the word “heaven” at the tops of the choruses, and to make sure I leaned on the letter “h” at the beginning of the word, so that people didn’t mistake “heaven” for “Evan” and think that I was pleading, “Evan where are you?” because that’s not what the song is about; it’s way more existential than just one guy. And by the time I wrote these lyrics I was way past — years past — being in love with Evan. “Evan, where are you?” would be an easy misinterpretation to make, since Evan is singing with me on the song — he is not so much evoked as he is right fucking there with me and so it’s almost impossible to not think of him at that moment — and since people back in the day seemed to be so fascinated by the idea of me and Evan and “are they or aren’t they?” etc. and looking — in the songs — for clues and insight into what was or was not going on and maybe wanting to think that I was forever pining for the guy (I was not). I mean, I kind of was for a while but at the same time I kind of wasn’t. And then I really wasn’t at all anymore.
Some people also may conceivably be confused because I am addressing heaven as if heaven were a person (calling heaven “you”). I guess that means I’m talking to God. I do that a lot.
Next post: a happy or goofy or fun song. If I can find one among the tearjerkers.
I was kidding Baud. I like Juliana - I have one of her cd's. Mental illness is mental illness no matter how it manifests itself or reveals itself.
oooooooooh pp is a juliana listener... oooh knew it.
I so wish I'd decided to see Juliana in October rather than Aimee Mann. Revisits to How to Walk Away and Become What You Are have reminded me of her magic. Although perhaps she's just as likely to induce narcolepsy as Aimee was. Hmmm. I'm buying her memoirs off Christmas cash. Yay!
lol aimee put you to sleep?
is it the alt country tone of her latest work?
it's your fault for listening to too much girls aloud!!!
hahaha kidding. DIG.
is it the alt country tone of her latest work?
it's your fault for listening to too much girls aloud!!!
hahaha kidding. DIG.
I adore Smilers. It's up there with Bachelor No. 2 for me. But she had zero stage presence.
and don't mock Team GA. You love them secretly.
and don't mock Team GA. You love them secretly.
Okay, she mentions Aimee Mann as an influence among others when she discovers someone's record collection. Then later she's talking about herself and she's identifying herself as part of a cultural trend.
"People took notice of me because girls with guitars who wrote their own music-and alternative rock in general-were being lavished with an inordinate amount of media attention. I was by chance part of a legitimate cultural trend: Liz Phair, PJ Harvey, Veruca Salt, L7, Babes in Toyland, Belly, Hole, Luscious Jackson, me, et cetera."
"People took notice of me because girls with guitars who wrote their own music-and alternative rock in general-were being lavished with an inordinate amount of media attention. I was by chance part of a legitimate cultural trend: Liz Phair, PJ Harvey, Veruca Salt, L7, Babes in Toyland, Belly, Hole, Luscious Jackson, me, et cetera."
juliana has a new, twee song.
it's called there's always tomorrow. cute, short, pretty, acoustic.
there's always tomorrow mp3
it's called there's always tomorrow. cute, short, pretty, acoustic.
there's always tomorrow mp3
THE HIGHWAY GIRL interviews Juliana on Dec. 17, 2008, about "How To Walk Away." To view the interview, go to -- http://blip.tv/file/1589048
"MAKE IT HOME" performed live and acoustic! From Kansas City on Dec. 5, 2008 -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gl8PUa6TaqE
LIVE AT LIME WITH JULIANA HATFIELD -- Recorded on Oct. 23, 2008 in NYC, this Live at Lime acoustic session with Juliana is raw, honest, and unscripted. ... To say this session is unselfconscious is an understatement — close your eyes and it’s like she’s sitting on your bed playing just for you. ... The set list here is comprised of impromptu requests [“My Baby...”], the requisite hit [“My Sister”], and a classic Blake Babies track [“Your Way or the Highway”]. ... But the real standout here is the brand new, never-before-released track “I Picked You Up” ... To purchase tracks, go to --
http://store.limewire.com/store/app/pages/...oductId/159720/
^ go on buy it fub!
"MAKE IT HOME" performed live and acoustic! From Kansas City on Dec. 5, 2008 -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gl8PUa6TaqE
LIVE AT LIME WITH JULIANA HATFIELD -- Recorded on Oct. 23, 2008 in NYC, this Live at Lime acoustic session with Juliana is raw, honest, and unscripted. ... To say this session is unselfconscious is an understatement — close your eyes and it’s like she’s sitting on your bed playing just for you. ... The set list here is comprised of impromptu requests [“My Baby...”], the requisite hit [“My Sister”], and a classic Blake Babies track [“Your Way or the Highway”]. ... But the real standout here is the brand new, never-before-released track “I Picked You Up” ... To purchase tracks, go to --
http://store.limewire.com/store/app/pages/...oductId/159720/
^ go on buy it fub!
i LIKE FIONA i MEAN SHES BRAIN DEAD BUT THAT DOESNT MEAN i DON'T LIKE HER.
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