Cat Power - Good Woman

(download)

I only first heard Cat Power a few weeks ago when I retrieved the friendlymixtape, but it immediately struck a chord with me. Probably because I didn’t really understand it at first, actually. The first couple listens were completely confusing to me, though familiar. As far as I could grasp, this was a song about a woman breaking up with a man, really, for reasons only she could understand. She claims she wants to be a good woman, but that involves destroying the man she loves? I beg your pardon? To me, it was a song that said, hey, sometimes people break up with people for no good reason.

Later on, after a few dozen more listens and meditation, I figured that it was really a song about the “bad man,” as told from the point of view of the other woman. No, she’s got a good reason for what she’s doing, and it’s probably the right thing to do. But you know, this is one of the few songs where I wish I had just let it lie and not given it too much thought… I liked my original interpretation a little better, just because, well, I like to connect on a personal level to my music.