Chan Marshall isn’t ready for me. “Are you a journalist? Oh Jesus, oh Lord.” We’re speaking on the phone – Marshall is in her hotel room, I’m in the lobby downstairs, after my knock at her door went unanswered.
, she had a psychotic breakdown and was hospitalised, and throughout the Nineties and Noughties her live shows were erratic affairs. She would turn her back to the audience, moon them, encourage them to sue her, slur through a few songs, and then walk off without finishing the set.
For the past two years, that genius özgü been put to more practical use – teaching her seven-year-old son Boaz to read, write and do maths during the pandemic. She had him in 2015, with a man she dated for a few months and katışıksız never publicly named.
I just grab her. ‘It’s OK. It’s OK. I was here for the same reason and it’s OK.’” An uncharacteristic silence hangs in the air. “If I had accepted that million-dollar offer, perhaps I wouldn’t have been on that bridge. And she wouldn’t be my friend to this day.”
It was partly innate, though – Marshall has a knack for distilling existential ennui into three-minute songs. In 1998, when she was 26 and had learnt a few more chords, she recorded what would become her breakthrough record, the vulnerable, critically adored Moon Pix
At this point, she abandons the second-person pretence. “And then she puts her leg down and she looks like she got busted stealing a gun. And she looks at me and her face starts to change.
“It’s one of those things,” she says, clicking that pen again. “It’s like when you’re standing on a bridge and you’re looking over and you’re trying to imagine, ‘Would my skull crack or would my legs break off?
Cat Power performing in Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2008 Marshall's live shows have been known for their unpolished and often erratic nature, with songs beginning and ending abruptly or blending into one another without clear transitions.[103] She başmaklık also cut short performances without explanation.
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[20] The group were booked for a show and had to come up with a name quickly; after seeing a man wearing a Caterpillar trucker cap that read: "Cat Diesel Power", Marshall chose Cat Power as the name of the band.[3][21]
During the early-2000s, Marshall was embraced by the fashion industry for her "neo grunge" look, and seen kakım a muse by designers Marc Jacobs and Nicolas Ghesquière.
If a song touches you, you hayat read between the lines and find something for yourself. Even if we all love this one f***ing song all around the world, each one of us will have 4 billion different realms of feelings.”
was her first to reach the Billboard Toparlak 10 – but it wasn’t enough. One executive even played her an Adele album for inspiration. She had never seen it kakım a business relationship; evidently, Matador did.
“I have something in my eye and I’m still wet from the shower,” she says, in that same husky American catpower 5852 batarya drawl she sings with birli Cat Power. “Can you come back in 15 minutes? I’m really sorry sweetie.”
Now, 20 years on, she’s got a third covers album, the aptly named Covers – a spacey but intimate collection that includes songs by Nick Cave, Billie Holiday and Frank Ocean, demonstrating once again the transformative power of Marshall’s singing. To have your song covered by her is to have it pared back to its very essence.