1995: Mary Lou Lord, Self-Titled EP
By Jennifer Whiteford
The first time I heard Mary Lou Lord’s self-titled EP was the day I moved in with my boyfriend, John. It was late August, 1998. The humidity thickened the air, making it hard to breathe as I carried my few possessions to our third floor walk-up. Despite the endless stairs, the apartment was nicer than any place I’d lived before, with high ceilings, tall windows, and a clawfoot bathtub. I could not imagine ever being sad in such a beautiful space.
John did not like the folky music I arrived with. His vast collection was heavy with obscure, American indie rock. CDs teetered in stacks as high as our knees on the hardwood floors. I’d squeaked through university on money from low paying summer jobs in libraries and garden centers. I did not have a lot of money leftover to buy music. It was overwhelming to suddenly have this large collection available to me. John chose a stack of CDs from his collection to listen to while we unpacked. Lord’s EP was the only one from that selection that became one of my favorites.
In the mid-nineties, Mary Lou Lord busked daily in subway stations along Boston’s Red Line. The cover of the EP shows her wearing a thick black beanie and a gentle expression, holding her small, angular Maxi Mouse amp. The Maxi Mouse, a portable, battery powered amp with two inputs, was the perfect piece of equipment for a busking folk singer. Especially one who wanted to make enough money to avoid a waitressing job, which is what Lord says was her goal.
I was also trying to avoid waitressing jobs. John was still finishing his university degree, and his student loan wasn’t stretching very far. I needed to work full time to support us. I first got work with a local theater, putting up their gig posters every week. The job was not dissimilar to busking. I got to be outside, observing the rhythms of the city pulsing around me. When my home life became bleak and oppressive, it was a relief to be away from the apartment, walking through the snowy streets in our city’s core. Eventually, as money dwindled, I took on a part time nanny job and then, inevitably, some shifts as a waitress at a noodle restaurant.
After a public spat with Courtney Love in 1993, Mary Lou Lord became more commonly known for her relationship with Kurt Cobain than for her talent as a songwriter. Lord first met Cobain in Boston, when he was touring with Nirvana. Nevermind had been recorded but not yet released. According to Lord, the two of them had a fast connection, discovering that they loved much of the same music. In her stories of their first meeting, she mentions his gentle demeanor, saying that he didn’t look like he was the band’s frontman. She says they stayed in frequent contact, with her visiting him as the band toured, often staying up late talking. Her stories make it sound like a classic, heart-pounding, early romance. From Lord’s telling, she was blindsided when things eventually crumbled.
Of the seven songs on the EP, Lord penned three herself. One of those - “The Bridge” - is presumed to be about Cobain. It is a melancholy ode to a relationship interrupted. Lord’s lyrics are resigned, asking only that the subject of the song not burn the final bridge between them. A second original, “Helsinki” may also be about Cobain. The weird detail of him and Love often communicating by fax might be what Lord is referencing when she sings “The fax machine here is out of order…” Both “The Bridge” and “Helsinki” are simple, sad, and sharp. Lord’s cleverness and vulnerability make for a powerful lyrical alchemy.
But the song that really drew me in was “His Indie World”. The lyrics are mostly the names of popular indie bands, tumbling like a waterfall of inside jokes and charming rhymes. As the song’s narrator, Lord despairs that her folk taste will never be cool enough for the dude she is interested in. “Just give me my Joni, my Nick, Neil, and Bob,” she sings. “You can keep your Tsunami, your Slant 6 and Smog…”
When I first heard the song, I knew who Joni, Nick, Neil and Bob were. My parents were 1970s folkies so I’d grown up with a solid knowledge of all the Laurel Canyon singer songwriters. I didn’t recognize the rest of the band names in the song. Early in our days of living together and listening to the EP, John would quiz me, asking if I could name an album or song by each band mentioned. At night as I fell asleep, I would recite the lyrics in my mind, testing myself, trying to be ready so I didn’t disappoint him when the questions started again.
As we lay in bed one wintry night, listening to music while the snow fell, John admitted the song made him feel called out. The male indie rock fan she is singing about is a comic figure, representing the ridiculousness of that type of guy. The kind who thinks his opinion is gospel and his taste is canonical. John confessing to that kind of a snobbery was out of character for him. It was a glimmer of self awareness that I kept in my mind, replaying his words again whenever things between us got especially heart-breaking.
The original version of “His Indie World” isn’t available on the more popular music streaming services. A live version recorded at KCRW does show up if you search the song title. Incredibly, this version features a new set of well-constructed lyrics and doesn’t repeat any of the bands named in the first version. Like many of Lord’s best songs, this one doesn’t feel effortless, so much as full of well-placed work. She seems to be the kind of writer who dedicates herself to something until it is perfect, whether that something is a verse, a chorus, or a seven-song EP.
Lord’s music was an effective bridge between my former taste and the taste John wanted for me. As the early, intense romance between us started to fade, it became clear how many things about me he wanted to change. He didn’t like my taste in music, or my friends. He rarely wanted to eat the food I cooked. I second guessed most of my choices. I made secret notes of acceptable conversation topics to keep in my pocket when we went out for dinner, wondering what was wrong with me.
I don’t know the details of how Lord went from a perfect EP on the Kill Rock Stars label to a full-length on a major. Perhaps the public feud with Love sparked enough general interest to convince a division of Sony Music to sign her. Maybe it was one of the blitzes where labels signed a slew of indie acts to see if one of them might be, ironically in this case, the next Nirvana.
Regardless of what it was that led to Lord’s debut major label full-length, Got No Shadow, the album didn’t land for me. It came out in 1998, the same year I was trying to shrink myself in that sad apartment. The record contained several re-workings of songs from the EP, with more elaborate instrumentation and layers of vocal harmonies. It was disappointingly slick. Gone were the charming imperfections, the points where emotion turned Lord’s voice scratchy, or the atonal plink of a guitar string played at an unexpected interval. This was a version of Lord with the jagged edges smoothed out.
Even the cover, where she is busking, feels wrong. It features a photo of her on a sidewalk, traffic speeding by behind her. She is tuning her guitar, her hairdo impeccable, her face fully made up. The Maxi Mouse amp is there too, off to the side on the ground, almost unnoticeable. Even the location chosen for the photo is weird. I’ve seen many buskers in the wild, but never one playing with their gear all over the sidewalk and their back to a multi-lane road full of vehicles. Lord was a subway busker, famous for playing underground. I hated the idea that she’d been forced into this inhospitable setting in the unforgiving sunlight. I sold the CD to a used record store. We needed the money.
In the end, I left John and that gorgeous, joyless apartment after only one year of living there. I took his Mary Lou Lord CD with me and moved to a new city three hours away. My bachelor apartment was two blocks from a local record store. I spent the next few years buying a record every payday, building up my own music collection, reveling in the calm process of choosing who I wanted to be. Lord had a baby, made some more records, had her version of “Speeding Motorcycle” in a Target ad. She even feuded some more with Courtney Love. I still listen to her EP, but not that original CD. I bought my own copy on vinyl.
Jennifer Whiteford lives in Ottawa, Ontario with her partner, children, dog, and record collection. Her debut contemporary romance novel, Make Me a Mixtape, will be published by Doubleday Canada in 2024. She also writes about music, punk culture, and parenting for Razorcake Magazine.
Instagram: @JenniferWhitefordWrites