The Ballad Of A Ladyman - Sleater-Kinney

Now it might be somewhat hypocritical for me to label anyone an elitist, I mean, I refuse to even have sex because "everyone does it", but there's a group of old school Bust readers who feel that Sleater-Kinney "lost it" with the release of the album All Hands On The Bad One. Now I could be pissing on my own chips here because if I was to have sex it would have to be with a Bust reader, but these people are wrong wrong wrong.
Aside from "Youth Decay" being the fourth best song to do a hyper-exaggerated Corin Tucker impersonation to (after "Sympathy", "The Fox" and "Words and Guitar"), the album is far from poor, with "The Professional" being the only song subjected to my skipping finger (sorry Carrie). My favourite track, however, is the album's opening number "The Ballad Of A Ladyman". The year prior to the album's release saw Sleater-Kinney perform at the indie-world's most discerning festival, All Tomorrow's Parties, in Camber Sands, England. One morning the band awoke to find some goon had posted at sign on their chalet door stating "Ladymen". The Ballad Of The Ladyman is Corin's response.

They say that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, but sometimes it's a necessary tool to get a point across, especially when one needs to heavily deride the recipient.
"Freak that I am, live in Japan, let's rock with the tough girls in this part of the world. Take a photograph, portrait of a ladyman" sings Corin before asking in the chorus "Are we holding on to our pride a bit too long?"

Oh, but the fun doesn't stop there as she continues in her mock tone "They say I've gone too far with the image I've got and they know I'd make a mint with new plastic skin and a hit on the radio! Oh, temptations of a ladyman". There's a certain underlying bile with they way she enunciates each word, and it just gets better as she advances "I could be demure like girls who are soft for boys who are fearful of getting an earful." This, to me, is the killer line of the song. It's a huge kick in the balls to those who wrote the "ladyman" sign. The insinuation of the sign is that somehow Sleater-Kinney (and all girls) are less female by not conforming to standard feminine presentation. This line retorts that men who cannot handle any challenges to these standards can only deal with to being surrounded by girls who aren't any threat to their pathetic egos. Girls who stroke and don't provoke.

Corin concludes the song with a series of questions all designed to make the sign-writer feel as tiny and foolish as possible: "How many times will you decide? How many lives will you define? How much control should we give up of our lives? And the last laugh is undoubtedly hers.

The Ballad Of A Ladyman - Sleater-Kinney