The Difficult Parts

Cat Power “American Flag”

Chan Marshall spends most of her time in “American Flag” singing about drummers, marveling at some magic power they have – playing rhythm, sure, but it seems more like she’s amazed by people who can be so steady and locked into objective time. They’re held up as a standard by which she falls short, and so she trails off at the end of verses: “If I could stand to be less difficult…” Marshall’s phrasing – in both senses of the word – cuts deep in this recording, you can extrapolate so much complicated history and self-torment from how she utters “be less difficult.” She sings it with a mixture of shame and resignation and resentment, like it’s something she’s been told too many times and it got under her skin enough for it to become internalized. The song seems to begin and end with ellipses, like she’s just trapped in this feeling and that makes a lot of sense since it’s basically a song about recognizing you’re trapped in a narrative and haven’t figured out a way to write yourself out of it.

Buy it from Amazon.