Belly in Billboard January 16, 1993
Discovering Belly's Personal Politics
by Timothy White
"Sometimes I think music is important," mulls Tanya Donelly, leader of the new group Belly. "Other times I think it's an entertaining distraction from things people should be paying attention to, like the healthy control of the world or their own families; the unresolved issue is the proper place of music in people's lives."
And it's precisely this sort of modern quandary that Donelly, formerly best known as a member of Throwing Muses, strives to explore in Star, Belly's debut album, due for release on Sire/Reprise/4AD January 26. Like a beacon probing a breathtaking fog, Donelly's clear, hesitant voice moves through the dreamlike noise of her songs, posing questions about values and attachments ("Do you have a sister? Would you . . . step tiptoe in hell for her?") in a song called "Someone to Die For" or asking unfeasible favors ("Heal me by a river") in the song "Slow Dog." Shifting between folk-rock anxiety and garage-band assertiveness, the music is dulcet and droning, and its inquiring lyrics sound innocent, but the sum effect is of rising alarm about the groping way in which we continue to live our lives. "The inspiration for 'Slow Dog' was this magazine article about an adulteress in ancient China who, for penance, had to have a dead dog strapped to her back until it decomposed," says Donelly. "That was her punishment for sleeping with someone other than her husband. Can you imagine?"
The power of a song like "Slow Dog" is that it actually tries, in its own impressionistic way, to imagine such cruel absurdities, as if the resurrected figment of them will rehabilitate the past and restore tenderness to the present. As with most of the fifteen consistently entrancing tracks on Star, we come upon the richly agitated instrumental drive of "Slow Dog" as of the song were already in progress, Donelly and fellow guitarist Tom Gorman's tinkling acoustic-electric chords passing by is in a spectral procession. By the time the tough, frolicking rhythms of Chris Gorman's drums and Fred Abong's bass join in, the phantomlike movement of the track has been transformed into a flesh-and-blood parade. The listener is left with the sense that, in times of doubt and disbelief, emotions are the only lasting truths. And they can be harder to take than all the facile lies we've been told.
"People think they want to be in love," says the twenty-six-year- old Donelly with a girlish guffaw, "but they don't want all the responsibility it entails. Another song on the new album, 'Low Red Moon,' is my favorite, because it's my first accessible love song." Yet it's a melancholy, almost draining, evocation of a "strange moon," a "strange man," and the exhausting nature of deep sensual endearment.
Meantime, the appearance of Belly and its first album marks a fond move for Donelly away from the security of her long association with Throwing Muses, the eccentric alternative pop outfit headed by her stepsister Kristin Hersh. "The decision really became necessary out the blue," she explains. "Previously I'd written maybe two songs a year with Throwing Muses, and suddenly, about a year ago, I found I now had twenty of my own I wanted to record. It's just not possible to unload that much stuff on the Muses because, really, it's Kristin's band." Moreover, Donelly had become a virtual free agent within the Muses fold, forming the Breeders as a side project in 1990 with Kim Deal of the Pixies, while also recording with the ever-transmogrifying ensemble known as This Mortal Coil. "I actually quit the Muses back when we were making The Real Ramona album [1991]," she confides, "but we didn't want anybody to know until I left officially in June of 1991. It was a comfortable decision as far as Kristin and me. She's always been my closest and dearest friend, dating back to when we'd get stoned as kids [Kristin's mom was once married to Tanya's father] over at her house, and write our first songs."
And what were Donelly's earliest compositions like?
"Well," she chuckles, "the chorus of my very first song was 'Steal me a car/And I'll love you.' That should tell you something."
If anything, it suggests a craving for excitement, along with some secondary interest in escape. Growing up as Donelly did in the attractive resort town of Newport, Rhode Island, she found the right measure of both desires fulfilled in nearby Providence, whose club scene has encompassed such legendary showcase haunts as Lupo's and the Living Room.
"Providence is a great place of you want to start a band," she says. "It's very urban but very relaxed, and there are so many different kinds of good players there that it's pretty difficult not to discover musicians with common interests, or at least someone unexpected." Which also describes how Tanya's father, a plumber-guitarist- actor, encountered her mom, a legal secretary. "The met at a church social in 1965, when they were sixteen. Dad was a Christian, my mom had on a red leather miniskirt, calf-high boots, and fishnet stockings. Basically, she dragged him down with her."
Years later, their rock'n'roll daughter is able to write wistful quasi-folk ballads like "Untogether," that encapsulate as well as anyone has the "impossible demands" and frustrating tears of an ill-fated but blameless romantic pairing. If there is a common thread in Donelly's work, whether with Throwing Muses, the Breeders, This Mortal Coil, or her own group, it's the sure, observant tone of a songwriter whose work transcends any easy gender categorizations. Although Belly is led by a woman, it is, like Throwing Muses, neither overtly feminist in spirit nor uncomfortable with its occasional erotic impulses. Whether imagining the secret intimacies of Solomon or recognizing the puppetmaster side of Pinocchio's Gepetto that lurks in many of us, the moody, brilliant material burns with the strength of its own unconditional will.
"The music on our new album has a fragile, melodic, and even honest thing to it that I can confess I really appreciate," says Donelly, who mentions her admiration for Janis Joplin. "But I don't think much about any symbolism in my role as the songwriter or front person for Belly. And in Throwing Muses it never really occurred to us that it was unusual because females were the main creative forces. We were never self-conscious about that at all. I started playing a cheesy Guild acoustic when I was fourteen, and I was nineteen when Throwing Muses was signed, so this work is the only kind of job I know. I do have strong personal politics, as far as being female and feeling it's important for a woman to be on-stage with a guitar. And if that has a positive effect on people that's gratifying.
"But the main thing I want to do with Belly is make powerful guitar-oriented music that could never be considered just"---she can't hold back a big laugh---"creepy pop songs! When music is important, it's because you can make useful connections for people, instead of hiding behind the noise."