This is Part 3 of Lisa Germano on 4AD, an ongoing series looking at the work of the singer/songwriter from 1994-1998.
I love you cause I hate me
—Lisa Germano, “Forget It, It’s a Mystery”
Oblivious and hurting
“There’s one [song] about like after you’ve broken up with this person, you realize that you liked it when you were kind of treated badly, and you liked it when you were not necessarily beat up – it doesn’t really go that far – it’s just kind of like after it’s over, you realize that you stayed in it because you actually liked feeling bad because you didn’t love yourself enough.”
Lisa Germano, Bloomington Voice, October 1995
Perception is a recurring theme in Lisa Germano’s work. It’s usually accompanied by feelings of self-doubt, inadequacy, paranoia, and fear. The idea of being looked at is terrifying. Which is why it’s especially startling, and sweet, that “Baby on the Plane,” the opening track of Excerpts from a Love Circus, treats that gaze as pure love.
I see your eyes looking at me
Oh yeah, all right, love has started to take
This is Lisa Germano we’re talking about, so there are still qualifiers: “This might not last forever.” But it’s a borderline cheery little vacation song, two characters in the honeymoon phase of love, seeing in each others’ eyes only “beauty, and tequila.” It does seem like an intentional decision to begin Love Circus on a lighter note, especially after the almost unbearably bleak Geek the Girl.
Germano has said in interviews that fans were worried about her mental health after the release of that record, sending her encouraging letters, checking in on her. The music industry, and fans, were understandably still reeling from the suicide of Kurt Cobain in March of ‘94. But the signs of needing help aren’t always so clear. Sometimes the ones that look like they need it the most, outlive us all. Sometimes the ones that look like they have the world on their shoulders, sneak out to the greenhouse and put a bullet in their brain.
Love Circus is both a continuation, and a departure, from the themes of Geek the Girl. There’s less paralyzing fear, threat of rape and home invasion (one critic jokingly teased categorizing the album as “Victim Rock”), but it’s still a twisted tale of rotten love, in this case, a specific sort of toxic codependency. Germano called it an album about being stuck in a relationship you know is terrible, but which you can’t find the strength to leave: “Imaginary love songs…not really about love.”
Excerpts from a Love Circus, art direction and design by Paul McMenamin at V23
The characters are petty, sad and lacking the confidence to be honest with themselves, or their partner. On “We Suck,” Germano takes a melancholy piano ballad about not being able to say what you mean and builds it toward a chaotic, atonal climax of pounding drums and monitor fuzz. It’s the kind of song you might sing to yourself late at night after several glasses of wine. Germano even throws in an offhanded f-word. It’s sloppy and uncomfortable, but it’s the kind of song that makes her music so special.
While Love Circus contains plenty of those beautiful and self-doubting Germano ballads she’s known for (“Messages from Sophia” is one of her most gorgeous odes to being drunk and needing someone to literally carry you home), it also features some of her strongest radio-ready singles. It might be hard to imagine now, but college radio in the 90s was adventurous and exciting, with DJs and programmers untethered by major label prying and payola. Wikipedia notes that “Small Heads,” “I Love A Snot” and “Lovesick” all “received considerate airplay on College & Alternative radio in America as well as the UK.”
“Small Heads” CD single, recorded & mixed at Echo Park Studio in Bloomington, IN
The statement lacks sourcing, but it’s not hard to imagine—all three songs have a beat. They have a groove, especially the silly, self-effacing “I Love a Snot”; when that instrumental bridge kicks in after the chorus, it sounds like a legitimate, head-bopping radio hit (albeit, a radio hit that includes the lyrics “tubby, tubby butt”). 4AD was seemingly all-in on the record, enlisting Tchad Blake to create an even more polished version for a big push to radio (Blake would go on to produce Germano’s follow-up record, Slide, so they were seemingly happy with the results). “Small Heads” sounds the most “alternative rock” of the batch, with a simple 4/4 beat, plucky piano and cutesy oboe to add sweetness to Germano’s lyrics about two selfish people that lie to themselves and each other. “Lovesick” is the most curious of the bunch, with the wonderfully quotable opening line:
You’re not my Yoko Ono
You said those words to me
It’s musically idiosyncratic, with what sounds like dulcimer and fiddle competing for sonic space. And this being 1996, a year after Todd Terry remixed Everything But the Girl’s “Missing” to massive, danceable success, someone must have talked Germano into allowing “Lovesick” to be similarly retooled by trip-hop artist, Underdog. But instead of an electronic dance anthem, the resulting track turns her bitter dirge into a dark, drum and bass caterwaul, all screams and moans. It’s a fascinating look at a direction that Germano would never take.
Remix of “Lovesick” by the mysterious artist, Underdog. Released September, 1997
While many of her peers would flirt with electronic dance music, she was, maybe stubbornly, content to stay in her lane. It’s not that Germano was against taking risks with her music, Love Circus is one of her most vibrant and diverse sounding collections of songs. I just don’t think she was interested in that type of music. As we’ll see with the cautious, middle-of-the-road follow-up, Slide, that obstinance would yield diminishing returns, as it would be her lowest selling album to date, and would force 4ADs hand in making the decision to end their partnership.
But what we have here, in her penultimate release with 4AD, is maybe the strongest distillation of her style—the moody and the manic, the sad and the silly. Just a girl, no longer a geek, with a “big, big heart” in a “big, big world.” Floating, floating, to her own swirling rhythm.
So what if your hero sells its soul
—Lisa Germano, “Singing to the Birds”
And all your wildest dreams seem dull and dreary
And all your secret thoughts seem cheap and lonesome
What you going to do so all alone now?
Mimsy Farmer Fanclub 