Everyday Emancipation #1: Lady Cab Driver

As one Redittor puts it, Lady Cab Driver is ‘one of the crispiest grooves ever put to tape’, and I couldn’t agree more. The ninth track on Prince’s fifth studio album 1999, this track is truly the masterpiece of the album, and quite possibly one of the most impressive masterpieces Prince made during his decades long career. But unlike some of his other songs that are considered to be extraordinary works of art, this is a track that is often only given the credit it deserves by die hard Prince fans or big music-heads in general.

Lady Cab Driver still feels simple when it’s complex, and it manages to feel complex when it’s simple, and I think that’s exactly what makes it such a terrific track. The S&M inspired breakdown of the song should make you feel very uncomfortable, yet Prince somehow manages to fit it into the song perfectly, partly thanks to the lyrics, but also almost as if the song was written as a journey in a taxi cab. That sure is what it feels like, with all the different twists and turns Prince takes with the drums, guitars and synths throughout the song, that create a sonic landscape that you can lay back and just listen to and enjoy for hours. His way of controlling the pacing and the energy of the song without actually doing anything too extravagant is also really remarkable.

On an album with so many other outstanding tracks, it’s easy to see how people might have looked over this song at the time. And 7 minutes is of course a long time for a song. The average person these days might just not even give a song a try simply because it is 7 minutes long. But Lady Cab Driver could have been 14 minutes and still be amazing. To sum it up I would say, Lady Cab Driver feels like a breath of fresh air for your soul every time you listen to it, in the way that it’s intense and yet so refreshing, and to me that’s what makes it such an incredible song.

Pillars of my Journey #1: BANKS, The Altar

Anyone who knows me knows how much Banks means to me, probably because I can never stop unapologetically fangirling her whenever I can. To me, Banks is the best kept secret in music, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. The impact she and this album had on my life is not something that I can even really try to start to sum up with just a few words and pictures, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to try.

Banks second album, The Altar, altered my life in many ways, and has stayed with me on my journey of getting to know myself and accepting myself ever since it first entered my life all those years ago in 2016. To this day it is one of the centerpieces of my life in many ways.

I’m not quite sure what it is about Banks that made her able to pierce through the masc facade bubble that I was living in, but I am so glad she did. Gemini Feed sure might have helped, it’s a song that can turn anyone into a believer, but for me, it was the first time since repressing that part of myself at the start of puberty that I was fine with letting myself listen to music that would be considered ‘too girly’.

My Banks fandom grew fast as I listened to the album again and again, and I went to her tour that year for the album. It was one of the most profound moments in my life where I was confronted with myself, gender-concepts, and the fact that I was living a lie. As I was fangirling Banks at her concert, a girl called me out and started to make fun of me, because how could someone that looked the way I did be having the time of their live at this woman's concert? It’s a moment that I look back on with a lot of duality, because in essence, she had a point, and yet it’s that exact fucking stupid gender boxed thinking that actually kept me from living the life I wanted to live all of my life. That, and of course various other layers of transphobia. It was a clear example of the thing that I have experienced over and over again for the first 25 years of my life, that my cis privilege was not something I ever felt to be a privilege, it was a prison, a coping mechanism that allowed me to run away from myself and constantly leave situations feeling like I hadn’t taken my space or compromised myself.

When I did start to accept who I was, this album became so much more layered and spoke to me on so many more levels. The song Weaker Girl is now an anthem to my existence. That moment when you can finally get over your own transphobia and stand in your own energy is so groundbreaking, to let go of the prejudice and just let yourself exist is truly a feeling like no other. To feel pride for your existence and who you are, the growth you made and who you’ve become despite all the fucking hardship. I used to pretend to be really tough as a shitty coping mechanism for trying to compensate for who I wasn’t, but the person I am now, they are actually tough, although I would much prefer to use the word resilient. When Banks sings ‘I need a bad motherfucker like me’ that always hits me really deep, because life, especially choosing to live life on your own terms, and not a life lived out of fear, sometimes requires you to channel that fierce energy inside of you, and that’s one of the many things I like about this song.

But Fuck With Myself also has a very special place in my heart, because of the dual meaning of the song, and how relatable that is to my own life. With the title, Banks means that she ‘fucks with herself’ as in that she rocks with herself, or that she has her own back, but she also means the other interpretation of the word, to ‘fuck with yourself’ as in to mess with yourself. I think it’s so clever to put these two together, but more than it just being a smart play on words, it’s something that I often find myself struggling with. Sometimes I’m my own worst enemy, and sometimes I’m my own best friend, and the beauty in it in my opinion is to be able to still be there for yourself when you are your own worst enemy, when you are messing up your own opportunities and chances at happiness, because it’s only by taking ownership of those moments in life that you can also take ownership of the growth you make, the challenges you overcome, the wounds you heal, the milestones you couldn’t even fucking imagine being possible to be reached being reached. That starts with unconditionally fucking with yourself more than anybody else, even if you do also fuck with yourself more than anybody else does.

The words she sings on Trainwreck often echo through my mind, ‘they told me you were never gonna let me get away’, to me that was referring to this prison that I had built for myself in which I lived, that I genuinely thought was the only right thing to do, because I really believed that my life would be invalidated and dehumanized if I lived the life I wanted to live. Which is obviously a very sad and depressing thing to acknowledge, but I think we often forget the impact that the societal treatment of queer, trans, and in other ways diverse people has on the brain of a child. But thanks to Banks I slowly did start getting away. I no longer saw my own femininity as something to be ashamed of, but rather as something to be proud of. Seeing her embracing and being proud of her own physical flaws, as she sings on this album, gave me the courage to start dealing with my shame about my body, that my femininity isn’t defined by how broad my fucking shoulders are. So I broke away more. I saw her rocking this cute moody vibe of a leather jacket and dark eye makeup and I went and bought myself a leather jacket and eyeliner. And sure, I can’t dance or look as good as Banks no matter how hard I try, but I felt carefree, and cute. By empowering herself, she also empowered another human being, and I think that is one of the most awesome things a person can ever do. And to some I’ll always just always be a boy with makeup on, or a dress on, or a fake woman with a dick, but people that think those things clearly don’t understand one very important aspect of the trans experience, and that is the human one. All those things I just said are things I have mostly been told by my own brain, by my own internalized transphobia and trauma and shame. But Banks helped me realize a really powerful thing. I’m not claiming anyone else’s space. The only person whose space I’m claiming is my own. The space I never claimed for the first quarter-century of my life. So I’m extremely grateful to Banks for coming into my life, for being a part of my journey, and for being able to reach someone that needed to hear those words of love and self-empowerment so much. Thank you forever.

P.S

One tiny detail I love about this album is that the CD version of the album has a short a cappella piano intro to Gemini Feed to start the album off, it’s such a lovely touch.

what would I tell the twelve-year-old me?

That they should ask their Mum if they can borrow her Prince CD’s and discover the joy dancing your heart out to Kiss. That they shouldn’t be afraid of looking inside, that their happiness comes from within and not from outside. How good they look with mascara on. How much fun it is to discover yourself, how great it feels to do gender-affirming things for the first time. How much boys suck, most of them anyway, and that you shouldn’t give a single fuck about what they say about you. How awesome queer people are, and how fucking inspiring it is to look up to a queer role model. How much suffering they can save themselves by going on puberty blockers. How precious it is to love the person you see in the mirror. How fucking incredible it is to have a healthy motivation for things because you care about yourself and not about other people. That the world is at their feet. That self-acceptance is not found in a bottle or a pill. That life doesn’t have to suck all the time. That they are very talented. That they should try to be there for their Mother for as long as they can but that they shouldn’t let her hurt them. That internalized transphobia doesn’t have to make their life a living hell if they a brave. And that they are brave. The bravest person I have ever met. That even in a dress life still sucks sometimes. That gender is a stupid fucking concept. That normal doesn’t exist. And that it really is true what they say, it’s much better being a kid.