ROSANNE CASH: SUBVERSIVE & SEXY SONGS
She may be country royalty, but she still gets down and dirty. Check her list of fave tunes both political and pretty.
by Jim Allen
Starting with 1979's Right or Wrong, Rosanne Cash helped forge a new kind of country music. Singer/songwriter introspection and a contemporary pop/rock sensibility combined with her natural country roots to produce indelible hits like "Seven Year Ache." The fact that she was Johnny Cash's daughter may have opened some doors, but she's always been her own woman. Critics are saying her new Black Cadillac, a meditation on the passing of her parents, is her most eloquent work to date. Cash chatted with us about some of her favorite songs and two themes cropped up: here are tunes either subversive or sexy.
Steve Earle "Condi, Condi" The Revolution Starts...Now
"I like the ska kind of feeling, and how completely tongue-in-cheek it is...a sexy song about a woman who's like Donald Rumsfeld, I just love that. She's the ultimate ice queen."
Mike Doughty "Busting Up A Starbucks"
Haughty Melodic
"It's awesome; it's my favorite song right now. Number one, his voice is so sexy...and this song grooves so deep, and it's so subversive, what could be more American than a Starbucks?"
Lucinda Williams "Hot Blood"
Sweet Old World
"Lucinda and I did a tour of Australia once and she did that song every night...I always came to the wings to listen to that song...it just dripped with sex. And the subversive part...it's her, she's naturally subversive."
Tori Amos "Taxi Ride"
Scarlet's Walk
"I love that song, it's about a gay man who died and there's just a lot of fury in it, and there's a lot of fury in love. When she goes to those high notes it gives me goose bumps."
Damien Rice "The Blower's Daughter"
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"It's just so pretty. I guess it's not terribly subversive, but it's sexy to me."
Joni Mitchell "Night Ride Home"
The Complete Geffen Recordings
"When I was listening to it, I had just fallen in love with my husband and I was thinking about him all the time, and I played this song obsessively. Second, because it was the first time I heard her voice change, and I thought, 'how cool is that?' Her voice dropped three octaves and she still sounds amazing. And also, it was so intimate, that song is very cinematic to me. You see them in the car, you see the night sky. Subversive because she is, and sexy because of what I was thinking about when I was listening to it."
Beck "Jack-Ass"
Odelay
"He's got attitude in spades, and yet that song was so sensual. A really great combination of attitude and sensuality."
Bright Eyes "When the President Talks to God"
Motion Sickness: Live Recordings
"Subversive for obvious reasons, and sexy because he had the balls to play it on Leno."
Jane Siberry "Calling All Angels"
When I Was a Boy
"Jane, more than anyone I know, can make spirituality and sex come together in this incredibly beautiful way that makes sense. Gorgeous song."
U2 "Love and Peace Or Else"
How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb
"U2 defines subversive and sexy, and I just chose that song out of many I could have chosen."
Creedence Clearwater Revival "Who'll Stop the Rain"
Cosmo's Factory
"That song kind of harkens back to the old protest songs to me. Like a direct child of Woody Guthrie. I love that kind of subversion with authority, and you know, John Fogerty's got an incredibly sexy voice and delivery."
Patty Griffin "Peter Pan"
Flaming Red
"Patty has a fire in her that just always inspires me, and this song was just so sexy...she also has the voice of authority, she really just embodies who she is. To me that's the ultimate sexiness."
Rosanne Cash "Like Fugitives"
Black Cadillac
"Subversive because it kind of indicts the church and lawyers, and sexy because...(coquettishly) I can be sexy..."
