Carmie has always offered us slightly off-the-wall yet inspiring songs, dealing with subjects like chronicling her move back to her parents’ home as an adult, having broken up with her partner, and bemoaning the collective failure of Danish youths to wean themselves off the bottle.
And it’s usually done in an ‘intelligent pop’ manner.
This time, on her newly released and smartly titled EP ‘Side B Stories’ the pop tradition is still there but her particular inspiration comes from a long love of country music, while the title partly arises from traditional single B sides released on vinyl back in the day usually falling into one of two categories: not good enough to be the A-side; or good enough but too personal.
Her songs often fall into the ‘personal’ class so it’s fair to assume that she considers the EP to be a catalyst for releasing songs that she is proud of and which channel those artists whose inspiration has been the greatest, including Dolly Parton, Lizzie McAlpine and Shania Twain.
And that’s definitely the case with this sample track, ‘Boy I’m a Woman’.
While Shania embodied female empowerment, self-expression and celebrating the fun and freedom of being a woman in her ‘Man, I feel like a woman’, Carmie takes it a stage further and gets stuck into the men who expect their partners to constantly do all that and, to boot, mother them and handle all the basic responsibilities of running a household while going through the motions of an affair.
The first verse tells you all you need to know about the charade:
“Half past ten and you ask if I’ll come over again
It’s the same old story, you’re bored and (you’re) lonely, but man…
This casual affair, it’s been a whole damn year
Seems you haven’t changed sheets since I first slept here
And this “text-when-you-care” thing ends right here, let me tell ya”
If I didn’t know that had been written in Europe (I believe she’s actually domiciled in the UK) I’d bet my mortgage it had come directly out of Nashville. And if you’re going to do country that’s what you have to aspire to.
And she does it in such a tongue-in-cheek way that you can’t help being endeared to her even if you have to acknowledge that the picture she’s painting is one of you.
(Continues after the Spotify link).
Find her on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/carmiemusic
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carmiemusic/
