“Violet” by Hole

Continuing with yesterday’s Song of the Day, with Women in Music from all eras, and with the anthemic nature we started with, I chose Hole’s “Violet” to play (loudly) on this second day of September. Today is a holiday in the States, a “bank holiday” as they say, so my weekend is extended which is allowing me more time to write, to listen to music, and to spend a little extra time with my family. It also is gifting me a little more time to take care of myself with some early morning gardening, meditation, and some exercise (with “Violet” included in my workout soundtrack).

I’m also on a path of trying to make peace with my anger, or maybe not “peace”, but accept my anger. Allow it. Feel it. Let it out, and let it go. “Violet” helps with that. A lot.

I’ve been curating a kickass exercise playlist with anthems, high energy bops, and empowering tracks like “Violet” that help me feel strong and invincible. Courtney Love and Hole always help me feel both strong and invincible.

“Violet” by Hole
from the album, Live Through This (1994)
Song of the Day
Women In Music September

“You should learn when to go.
You should learn how to say no.”

“Violet” is my favorite Hole song. It’s also one of my favorite songs of all-time. The song was written by Courtney Love and Eric Erlandson, in 1991, and performed during Hole’s 1991-1992 early tours. It then became the opening track on Hole’s second studio album, Live Through This, which was released in 1994.

Later, it was released as Hole’s seventh single, third from Live Through This. “Violet”, as a single, was released on January 1995. This was after the June 1994 death of bandmate Kristen Pfaff. (from Wikipedia)

“Violet” peaked at #29 on the Billboard‘s Modern Rock Tracks after the album’s release in 1994, and is considered one of Hole’s most well-known and critically recognized songs. (from Wikipedia)

The cover artwork (see above) for “Violet” features a Victorian “mourning portrait” of a deceased young girl taken from the historical archives of Stanley B. Burns.

“Violet” (live on Saturday Night Live, 1994) by Hole

Courtney Love may be polarizing, she may be controversial, and sometimes she may do things that are unlikable, but many of us are all those things, too, just without the eyes of the world on us. No matter what, I have a forever and always place in my heart for Courtney, and a shared sort of kinship with her. Her daughter and my oldest are the same age, and we both lost our husbands to addiction and suicide, something that isn’t so easy to “live through”.

Her music with Hole, though, helped me “live through it”, and a lot more. Hole songs still help me with the “living through things”, “Violet” especially.

“Violet” has inspired so much writing of mine. A character from my novel-in-process idolizes Courtney and Hole, and I’ve written at least a dozen poems listening to this song, as well.

Here’s one:

Flush

Down in the bottom of last week’s laundry
tangled, mismatched
half a ticket stub from 1995 lies
Faded, but the date’s still there
but nothing else
I know it was yours
I know it was some kind of sign

I want to give you a festival of music,
lights, dancing, disarray
Shake out the night like an old beach blanket
stars flaking, flying away
We could grab our grade-school watercolors,
magic markers from purple backpacks
and start over

Let’s begin again with the sky

I slip on a black lace top,
tucked underneath.
We all have secrets.
We all have scars.
I bet you still smoke that same old brand,
and smell of rosemary and cheap aftershave,
tobacco, sweat.

I’ll take a beer, please.
Hold the ashtray,
but not the jukebox coins.

Do you remember being wired out of our minds?
Climbing train tunnels,
trading rings.
This one could be a wedding band.
Ours.
Yours.
As you smeared my eyeliner across your face.

“So pretty, Miss Kitty.
So pretty.
Yeah, I’m sure those scratches will heal.”

I keep finding remnants
Paper-thin memories while the clock ticks away.
I know I write too much of love,
of intimated desperation.
As if this heart is the only thing worth bleeding for.

Wait
Is that his old jacket?
My red dress?
Your left shoe?

I want to throw it all in some wild, winding river
in the South
someplace I’ve never been
Dunk my head in after
baptize me clean
free
Sew on a pair of hand-me-down wings.
Lose myself at the crossroads of Jazz Musicians
and Front Women.

Or maybe do nothing.
Be nothing.
Nothing at all.

“When they get what they want,
they never want it again.”

(thank you, Courtney Love, for the last lines/lyrics)