Album by Ani DiFranco
I’d never really sat with an Ani DiFranco album before. I’m a little mad at myself about that, because this is a really great debut album.
Ani DiFranco is full of songs about patriarchy, sexual expectations, relationships, sexual agency and independence. More than anything, this feels like an album about figuring out how to be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to tell you who you are supposed to be.
To call it a feminist album is probably accurate, but doing so risks giving a reductive impression of a record that is, at its core, a highly personal and complex piece of storytelling. This album isn’t just about one kind of relationship with men. If anything, it is about navigating a world structured around male expectations and power.
Musically, I wasn’t prepared for how much color she could get out of what is basically an acoustic guitar and her voice. There are songs here that sound like folk music but don’t really behave like folk music. Others have the momentum of pop without actually being pop songs. Sometimes the guitar becomes almost percussive, with short, clipped rhythms that keep the songs moving. Sometimes it is gentle and pretty.
Her voice is just as distinctive. She can sing beautifully, but she also knows how to change the way she sings to fit whatever the song needs. Sometimes she sounds delicate, sometimes intense, sometimes almost conversational. There’s never a sense that she’s trying to show off what she can do.
The other thing I kept feeling throughout this album was that I was eavesdropping. There is so little distance between DiFranco and the listener that sometimes it feels like I’m sitting in the room while she works something out, and I’m not entirely sure I’m supposed to be there.
“Both Hands” is a reflection on the end of a deeply intimate relationship. She’s looking back at what they meant to each other and what that relationship means now that it’s ending. Her guitar playing is so unusual. The acoustic guitar almost becomes a rhythm instrument, and the vocal is so expressive. I could feel every word.
“Talk to Me Now” feels like a song about self-preservation. What it takes to survive as a woman in the world and maintain some sense of her own identity while doing it. The way DiFranco sings it is one of the things I love about the album. She stretches certain words just enough to give herself room to move vocally, but it never sounds like a conventional vocal run.
We then get spoken-word poetry with “The Slant.” It starts with the physical world itself being crooked. The architecture becomes a metaphor for a world that isn’t built neutrally around her. DiFranco isn’t just writing songs about independence. She’s using the album to work through what independence actually means when you’re still vulnerable, still dependent on people, still figuring yourself out, and still living inside structures that weren’t designed for you. She ends “The Slant” by acknowledging that she is still becoming, an idea I feel connects a lot of these songs.
“Work Your Way Out” has an urgency to the way she plays and sings. It has the basic ingredients of a folk song, but there is a forward motion to it that keeps it from feeling soft. DiFranco’s voice keeps pushing the song along. Lyrically, the song seems to be asking what happens to our ability to recognize one another after we’ve been taught to see the categories first.
“Dog Coffee” plays almost like a beat poem. She’s performing the words rhythmically, letting the guitar and her phrasing create the movement. It seems to be about the struggle to make art in a world that sees everything as a commodity. One of the most straightforward folk songs on the album, “Lost Woman Song” provides a deeply personal perspective on abortion. She’s describing the practical reality of having to make the decision and then dealing with everything surrounding that decision. There’s frustration in the performance because this isn’t presented as some abstract question of politics or morality. It’s her life.
“Pale Purple” has the storytelling of a folk song, but DiFranco sings it with the personality and freedom of a jazz vocalist. She stretches words and changes their shape, and the guitar has a little strut to it. The song seems to have two halves. One looks at the outside world, the socioeconomic disparities, and the other half looks inward. There is something here that feels like a reflection on that period when you’re still forming and you’re vulnerable to letting society tell you who you are. Eventually you realize that you have to figure that out yourself.
In a twist on the relationship we heard end on “Both Hands,” “Rush Hour” looks at one where the emotional connection is gone. Her partner is completely disengaged in every way except physically. The music and performance mirror the frustration. You can practically hear the desire for this to end with every chord.
Built from a short, choppy acoustic guitar rhythm, “Fire Door” explores all the complicated emotions of discovering infidelity. Everything from anger to wanting to return to a time before she knew. At times she sings in a way that almost becomes spoken word.
“The Story” might be the prettiest song on the album. The music is gorgeous, almost gentle enough to make you forget how much the lyrics are wrestling with. It starts with the everyday experience of being a woman — unwanted attention, the assumptions attached to a simple interaction, the places you’re taught you shouldn’t go — and gradually expands into a larger reflection on the different stories men and women inherit.
“Every Angle” is almost structured like a pop song, although it is still just acoustic guitar and voice. There is a forward momentum here, and it may be one of the most direct expressions of longing on the album.
“Out of Habit” begins as a collection of routines and feels like a way to find independence and agency inside them. The music is gorgeous while some of the lyrics are so blunt. The song doesn’t end with some declaration that she has escaped all the routines of life. It circles back around to the beginning, as if to illustrate that she’s still living in a world of habits. The difference is that she’s trying to decide which habits belong to her.
The finale, “Letting the Telephone Ring,” sounds a little heavier and does not offer a neat resolution. Another song about dealing with infidelity, but this one is so raw. There is hurt and anger here.
And that’s where Ani DiFranco leaves us.
That lack of resolution actually feels right. Because this album doesn’t really seem like it’s about someone who has figured themselves out. She’s still a work in progress. That makes this album much more nuanced than the reputation of “Ani DiFranco, feminist songwriter” might suggest.
It’s not simply about bringing down the patriarchy. It’s about trying to remain yourself while you survive it.
Verdict: Great
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