My Fondest Childhood Memories
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| Macy Gray |
We continue this week’s “Vengeance of the ‘Inner Child'” series with Macy Gray‘s “My Fondest Childhood Memories.” Earlier this week, we gave a listen to Jim White’s “The Wound That Never Heals,” the musically-framed story of a damaged soul exacting misplaced revenge on a series of men in her life. Where that tale involved a child who could not take her violent revenge as a child, and instead did so as an adult, Macy Gray’s song appears to give us a story where the child is capable of taking matters into her own hands. At least that’s how it appears…
Let’s hear what Ms. Gray has to say:
“My Fondest Childhood Memories,” by Macy Gray (myspace)
When I was 10 I had a live in babysitter, she had a pet
Kangaroo wore big breasts and feathers. She gave me ice
Cream every time I screamed and hollered and I loved her till I
Caught her sexing with my father.
She gonna hurt you daddy never again, she wasn’t a friend, so
I killed her. She gonna hurt you daddy never again she wasn’t
A friend, so I killed her.
When I was 13 the plumber stopped by, the house was flooding
And no one knew why. Within no time at all he got
Rid of the water and I was grateful till I caught him plunging
My mother.
He gonna hurt you momma never again, he wasn’t a friend, so
I killed him. He gonna hurt you momma never again he wasn’t
A friend, so I killed him.
And I don’t feel bad about it. Say what? And I don’t feel bad
About it. These are my fondest childhood memories. I was just
A kid, so they let me go despite the murders that I did – all
Grown up now as u can see, my parents are still happily
Married thanks to me.
She gonna hurt your daddy never again,
She wasn’t a friend, so I killed her. She gonna hurt you daddy
Never again she wasn’t a friend, so I killed her.
He gonna hurt you momma never again, he wasn’t a friend, so
I killed him. He gonna hurt you momma never again he wasn’t
A friend, so I killed him.
These are my fondest childhood memories
Now there’s a happy-go-lucky tune, if ever there was one. This song, like “The Wound That Never Heals,” was suggested to me by my friend, Patrick. I hadn’t heard it or much of Gray’s music (at least so far as I can remember) before. I don’t have too much to write about it (what? are those cheers I hear?), but I did think it was an interesting addition to the week, for a few reasons I’ll mention below.
For purposes of our discussion, at least, I think we can completely dispense with the idea that the song relates a real story about Gray’s life. It’s a work of artistic invention, not reportage. What I find interesting about the song, in addition to its infectious pop hooks, is that apart from not being real, it’s probably not even true, but is instead deliberately ironic. We have another unreliable narrator, folks.
As I said in the previous post, we’d be paging Dr. Freud a good bit this week. Subtle cues within the song suggest to me that it gives us the narrator’s imagined memory rather than an accurate account of the narrator’s actions. That is, I think it’s more of a musical murder fantasy than a murder ballad per se; again, not because the story is made up by Gray, but because it’s made up by its narrator.
“My Fondest Childhood Memories” presents an account of a child’s imagined control and influence over the actions of her parents, when the “real” story behind what the protagonist narrator is telling is probably one of being powerless over these emotionally charged events of her childhood, or ones like them. In other words, like “Pancho and Lefty” and “Babylon” (in its various iterations), this song is a bit of a liar, but it’s an immensely fun and groove-filled lie.
We’ve talked before about how some murder ballads allow us to process a range of feelings from guilt to vulnerability in the face of death. This song, for my money, is about claiming some kind of power when there really was very little power there. This is about making things right that were profoundly not right. The vengeance of the “inner child” here is well and thoroughly imagined.
Next up
In the next post, we’ll look into one more modern song of a grown child’s murderous vendetta, but this time one with some older resonances.