i'm the vengeful woman

The archetype of Vengeful Woman in pop music is responsible for a large chunk of my music taste, aged 12 and on. For some reason I feel as if it was during the 90s where this archetype became, if not born, then at least solidified. The sociological reasons and ramifications of which I will not go into in much depth, but suffice it to say, the more lenient social mores of a decade ago allowed greater opportunity for Women Getting Pissed Off and Doing Something About It. Certainly X-Ray Spex wanted to put it up yours, Irma Thomas told you that you weren't gonna hit it, and Chrissie Hynde was perpetually coolly disinterested, but they paved the way rather than gave birth to the myriad forms of Vengeful Woman: Bikini Kill's feminist studies sloganeering, Hole's victimized attacker, PJ Harvey's bloody terrifying psychoses, and Fiona Apple's husky syncopated growls, just to name a few of the ones I've adored. I even like the bland or terrible ones, like "Sunny Came Home" and even Avril Lavigne's assorted misguided teenage bloodlust.

I suppose one of the few things I would criticize about the Vengeful Woman archetype is a lack of humor or awareness regarding the melodrama, though Polly Harvey's "Bend you over Casanova" is pretty hysterical, considering her panting. Which is why country music has been, to my mind, the greatest practitioners of Vengeful Woman, mixing threat and hilarity in equal measure, whether it be in the lyric, sound effect, or delivery.

The greatest example I can think of is Loretta Lynn's "Fist City," challenging a woman who's been cavorting around with her man. When Lynn sings "The man I love, when he picks up trash/He puts it in a garbage can/And that's what you look like to me," it is a witty putdown, and coupled with "stay outta my way/if you don't wanna go to Fist City" makes it both hilarious and terrifying, like most threats tend to be.

Vengeful Woman is directly related to Woman Done Wrong, which is a strength of the genre. There seems to have been a resurgence in country music of Vengeful Woman, thanks in large part to the success of the Dixie Chicks' "Goodbye Earl." The song is already a hoot when delineating the differences between Mary Ann and Wanda: Mary Ann leaves for greener pastures while Wanda stays in town, where "all she found was Earl." Natalie Maines' delivery of the word "Earl" here is uproarious in its shrugging dismissal, with a touch of bite alluding to Earl as a domestic abuser, in contrast to the joyous way she trills it in the chorus, making murder sound like both catharsis and party.

My favorite new additions to the Vengeful Woman canon both come via reality television, of all places. First there's American Idol behemoth Carrie Underwood, whose "Before He Cheats" manages both slow-burn revenge fantasy along with striking and illuminating detail, much of which is uproarious in its disdain. Underwood deserves tremendous credit for completely nailing the derisiveness she feels towards both cheatin' boyfriend and the gal he's cheating with. There's a wonderful dancing rhythm to how Underwood sings, voice dripping with scorn, lines like "He's probably buying her some fruity little drink cos she can't shoot whiskey" (! funny because this new girl clearly LACKS BALLS, what do you need with a horrible girl like that? A horrible girl that sings "some white-trash version of Shania karaoke"?!!!!!) and "He's probably dabbing on three dollars' worth of that bathroom Polo," lines whose attention to detail speaks worlds about its characters, meaning the chorus's decimation of the cheater's "purty little souped-up four-wheel drive" is, in this post-Beyonce age of romance-as-capitalism, appropriately cathartic and vengeful: The lyrics have spelled out this guy to be one of those awful dudes who cares more about his truck than his girl.

The second new entry into the Vengeful Woman canon comes via Miranda Lambert, who got her start on Nashville Star, apparently some sort of American Idol for country musicians. "Gunpowder & Lead" takes the domestic abuse of "Goodbye Earl" and one-ups it not with cute fantasy but by mixing it, amazingly, with something approaching the venom of Bikini Kill's "Suck My Left One." If in "Goodbye Earl" the Dixie Chicks protagonist poisons black-eyed peas (with a huge dose of wink), Lambert wants confrontation, setting up an ominous scene, darkly poetic in contrast to Underwood's blunt literalism. What finally elevates Lambert's Vengeful Woman ode is the propulsion of its attack, the explosion of the guitars in the chorus along with Lambert's throat of bile, the challenge of the abuser's masculinity, and showing that little girls aren't all sugar & spice. Lastly, "His fist is big but my gun's bigger" is as great, funny, and subversive a female appropriation of male phallus since Harvey's "50 Ft. Queenie." A sentiment I wish I could express more often, but thankfully there'll always be the Vengeful Woman in music to come up with something as great once more.

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The song is already a hoot when delineating the differences between Mary Ann and Wanda: Mary Ann leaves for greener pastures while Wanda stays in town, where "all she found was Earl.