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To those
unaccustomed to rock literature, the title of Lavinia Greenlaw's
latest book, The Importance of Music to Girls, may
sound a bit academic—a sociological study of music's
impact on girls. But for those familiar with the stereotypes
of women in rock 'n' roll, the title is subtly defiant: Music
is important to girls, and not just in a superficial way.
In Importance,
Greenlaw—a novelist, poet, and writer of opera librettos—chronicles
the role music played in her life growing up in 1970s England.
The book is divided into chapters that read more like vignettes—small
extracts of memories or brief flashes of the past that, like
songs themselves, encapsulate a sentiment rather than a full
narrative. These brief tracks are both infuriating and sweet
in their nature. On one hand, many of the early stories are
so short that they seem to lack a point. Often, Greenlaw's
early youth is discussed in terms of dance without reference
to music, causing the text to seem strangely off topic.
On the
other hand, Greenlaw writes vivid images of her childhood
that seem alternately delicate and bold. And as young Lavinia
develops an interest in pop music, the chapters become more
lucid and cohesive. Like most girls, she passes her tweens
and early teens trying her best to fit in and obsessing with
teen idols such as Donny Osmond. Consequently, she spends
a great deal of time taping pin-ups to her walls, primping
in front of mirrors, attending youth discos, and dancing in
circles to ABBA.
In essence,
Lavinia's tale of youthful fanaticism is the story of all
girls who've ever loved rock 'n' roll—just substitute
Osmond for Elvis Presley, the Beatles, New Kids on the Block,
Justin Timberlake, or the Jonas Brothers. Therein lies the
problem with girls' rock 'n' roll stories, though: After generations
of squealing over bands, women are often seen as being interested
in music for all the wrong reasons. And many recent music
memoirs written by women—including Wonderful Tonight
and Let's Spend the Night Together—do little to
dispel the stereotype of a woman's traditional role in rock
music: as a notch on a rock star's bedpost.
Lavinia,
however, becomes more Patti Smith than Pattie Boyd, growing
out of pin-up disco pop to align herself with another important
movement of the 70s: punk rock, which freed Lavinia from the
stricture of acceptability and feminine beauty. "'Punk' had
nothing to do with being a girl. It neutralized, rejected,
and released me," she writes. "I made myself strange because
I felt strange and now I had something to belong to, for which
my isolation and oddness were credentials."
Though
the rebelliousness of punk was liberating, Lavinia still found
herself wearing the uniform of a scene: instead of platforms
and feathered hair, her crowd wore bondage pants and brightly
colored spikes. And despite punk's gender neutrality, the
unspoken right to love music as an art form was still unequal.
While boys were free to declare allegiances to music, to obsess
over bands, and to analyze it as Nick Hornby, Lester Bangs,
or Chuck Klosterman might in their writing, Lavinia's attempts
to talk about music were off-putting to others:
I
knew there were those for whom music was soundtrack and
those of us for whom it was, well, music, but didn't notice
that most of those who took it seriously were boys. […]
I was thrilled by discovery, crushed by disappointment,
and mortified by any misplaced enthusiasm. I declared
allegiance, took a position, and always had a view, not
noticing that girls were bemused and boys found me boring.
Was a girl not supposed to feel so strongly, let alone
want so much to possess and know something for her own
sake?
There's
a pretentiousness to this gender bias—a snobbery that
equates nerding out about music to talking seriously about
art. But music doesn't pick the people it inspires, genres
can't be owned, and the people playing the music aren't meant
to be revered—a point driven home by the suicide of Joy
Division's Ian Curtis at age 23. As Lavinia learns to move
past both the gender issues and her own adolescent naïveté,
she grows to own her role as a woman and sees music for what
it is: a personal touchstone, not the means of defining her
life.
By the
end of the book, the dancing mentioned in Greenlaw's childhood
comes full circle, reminding both her and her readers that
music is the impetus, but the actual movement depends on the
individual. What's compelling about The Importance of Music
to Girls is the journey Greenlaw takes to get to that
realization—and the best part is that it's not terribly
different from any other girl's.
(July
2008)
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