Today is IWD – International Women’s Day, to give its full title – and I felt this was a suitable occasion to mark with a post. And as this year it falls on a Tuesday this seemed the natural place for it. This is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating women’s equality. IWD has occurred for well over a century, with the first IWD gathering in 1911 supported by over a million people. Today, IWD belongs to all groups collectively everywhere: it is not country, group or organisation specific. The theme for the day is #BreakThe Bias, which is defined on the IWD website as meaning:

“Imagine a gender equal world.

A world free of bias, stereotypes, and discrimination.

A world that is diverse, equitable, and inclusive.

A world where difference is valued and celebrated.

Together we can forge women’s equality.

Collectively we can all #BreakTheBias.“

If you’d like to know more, the official website can be found here.

For my post in support of IWD I wondered how I could represent this in music. The best way I could think of to show how music can #BreakTheBias was to play you a set of songs by bands who are led by a female vocalist. I could also have gone for a selection of female singer-songwriters, but that would probably have resulted in a collection of the usual suspects. This is a little different, and I think I’ve only played three of these before, and not frequently. Several of the songs have a message of strength, which I think is in keeping with the day.

This first song is from someone who I’ve only played once previously. She fronts the band, which uses her (first) married name, but they are very much a collective effort – her (second, and current) husband is the lead guitarist and co-writes many of their songs and the band has enjoyed consistent membership – so I don’t think I’m cheating by playing you this one:

That isn’t the official video for the song: there is an official live performance one, but the sound quality is better on this. What it lacks in audience participation is, I think, compensated by the clarity of the video. Pat Benatar released eleven studio albums, and this was on her second, Crimes Of Passion, in August 1980. The album peaked at #2 in the US, Canada and France, but didn’t even make the charts in the UK: a fairly common theme for her, I think, as her chart placings have been modest here. Hit Me With Your Best Shot was the second single taken from the album, in September 1980, and reached #9 in the US and #10 in Canada. Again, it wasn’t a UK hit. Some of us liked her, though!

My next choice for today is from a band who have had much more chart success here, as well as in many other countries:

I have been a fan of Heart since their early days. Anyone who has sat in a record shop booth to listen to their song Barracuda, the opening track on their third album, Little Queen, doesn’t forget them in a hurry! I have played them before: I created a post, which I have since revised and reshared, around their incredible version of Stairway To Heaven at the Kennedy Centre event honouring Led Zeppelin. Who Will You Run To is a track on their ninth album, Bad Animals, released in June 1987. This was their first top ten album in the UK, peaking at #7 here, and it got to #2 in the US. The first single from the album, Alone, was a massive hit, becoming a US #1 and reaching #3 here. This was the follow up, released in August 1987, which got to #7 in the US and #30 in the UK. The song was written by Diane Warren, a prolific writer of hit songs for many bands and artists, with nine US #1s to her name plus a whole string of awards.

Something a little different for you now. If you’ve seen these posts before you will know of my love for English folk music, and I have shared many songs from that tradition. The English folk-rock scene really started in the late Sixties, and was driven by two bands. One of these – Steeleye Span – has been featured here several times, but I have been much less generous with the other: Fairport Convention. This surprised me a little, as I’ve long been a fan of theirs too, and have seen them in concert a number of times over the years. They originally began as a kind of English answer to the likes of Jefferson Airplane, but once they recruited Sandy Denny to their ranks they followed the English folk tradition much more closely. Their big album, which has been voted the best English folk album of all time in a poll run by the BBC, is Liege And Lief, released in 1969. This was the one where they really embraced the tradition, and is a mix of traditional songs and their own compositions. This is one of the traditional ones, which tells the story of a lady standing up for what she wanted and telling her man where to get off. It is a long song, but the only live versions I can find are much later, since Sandy’s tragic passing, so I’m going with this audio-only one:

The phrase ‘voice of an angel’ gets bandied around a lot. To my mind, you’ve just heard it. Some of Sandy Denny’s solo output is breathtakingly good, and her passing at just 31 was a huge loss for those of us who were fans of hers, and for music in general. She wrote the song Who Knows Where The Time Goes which has since become a classic recorded by many, including Judy Collins, and is also the only singer ever to guest on a Led Zeppelin album (The Ballad Of Evermore, on Led Zeppelin IV). As traditional English folk songs go, this is very much a standard subject: an early kind of girl power, if you like! And it has the distinction of a version recorded by Joan Baez, too.

I’m flitting around amongst the genres this week. So far I’ve given you two examples of mainstream American rock, followed by a piece of traditional English folk-rock. So how about a bit of American indie rock next:

The lead singer of Rilo Kiley was Jenny Lewis, who was already well known as a child actress in various tv shows, and has continued her acting throughout both the lifetime of the band and her own solo music career. Rilo Kiley released four albums, and Portions For Foxes was a track on the third of those, More Adventurous, which was released in August 2004, getting to #161 in the US and #116 in the UK. This track was released as a single but as far as I can tell it didn’t make the charts anywhere. The song’s title is a reference to Psalm 63, verse 10, which reads “They shall fall by the sword: they shall be a portion for foxes.” I could claim to have already known that, but you’d never believe me, would you? Wikipedia at its best! From the same source I learned that the song was featured in the video game Rock Band 3, and was used as part of the soundtrack to the very first episode of Grey’s Anatomy. I’ll have to take their word for both of those, as I’ve never played the game or watched the show. But I’ve always loved this song, though.

Back to these shores now. Well, kind of – the band is recognised as British but their leader is American. This is a classic rock song, with a message of female strength:

Brass In Pocket was a track on The Pretenders’ eponymous debut album, released in December 1979. Two of the tracks had already been released as singles, both making the UK top forty, and this was the third, released to coincide with the album. Both the single and the album went to #1 here in the UK – still their only UK #1s. In the US the album reached #9 and the single peaked at #14. Chrissie Hynde, who wrote the song, described it as meaning that you needed to have strength and confidence to go on stage and perform. She proved her point, I think.

Having earlier played you a song that was featured in the first episode of Grey’s Anatomy I was struck by the coincidence when I looked up this next one and found that it was used in episode two of the show. Maybe I’ve been missing out? It was also in an episode of Scrubs, but as far as I can see from the lyrics there are no medical themes there. See what you think:

To me, that is a song about a woman who has come through a lot and has learned some life lessons along the way, not all of them positive for her. Lead singer Nina Persson wrote the lyrics, and I’ve often wondered how autobiographical they are. Nothing in there about operations or hospital gore, though! I first recall hearing this when it was used as the soundtrack to a long fade out ending of an episode of the Swedish TV series Wallander – the first ones, starring Rolf Lassgärd, not the later Krister Henriksson ones. It was a very effective accompaniment as the hero got into his car and drove off into the distance, having solved another harrowing case. Not having been a big fan of The Cardigans I hadn’t come across it until then, but it was the song that converted me to their music. It was on their album Long Gone Before Daylight, released in March 2003. The band are Swedish and like most of their albums this did well across Europe, particularly in Scandinavia, getting to #1 in Sweden and #8 in Norway, in addition to making #47 in the UK. This was the third single taken from the album, but doesn’t appear to have been a hit anywhere.

After that piece of moody Scandi fare I thought I’d share something a little more upbeat. A few weeks ago I mentioned that I hadn’t played much by 10,000 Maniacs, and this week’s theme gives me the perfect excuse to share another of their songs. Natalie Merchant is another vocalist for whom I have a lot of time, and I love her joyous dancing style too:

Stockton Gala Days is a song about a woman looking back to her childhood, the simple pleasures of nature, and how those become a metaphor for her having the strength to hide away the parts of herself that she doesn’t want others to see. It was originally released in September 1992 on their album Our Time In Eden, which I think is my favourite of theirs, though all of their albums are good. This one peaked at #28 in the US and at #33 in the UK, though this track wasn’t one of the three singles taken from it. The version I’m showing here is from their MTV Unplugged album, which was released in October 1993, making #13 in the US and #40 in the UK. The lady sharing the vocals is Morgan Fichter, who played violin for this show, though the one playing violin on this track is Mary Ramsey, who played on Our Time In Eden and later took over the lead vocalist role after Natalie left the band. Just one song was released as a single from the Unplugged album: their version of the Bruce Springsteen/Patti Smith song Because The Night, which got to #11 in the US singles chart, two places higher than Patti Smith had managed fifteen years previously.

Today’s final song is an absolute blockbuster, one of those ‘let’s announce ourselves’ moments that bands sometimes achieve:

Bring Me To Life was released in March 2003 on the debut album by Evanescence, which was entitled Fallen. The album reached #3 in the US but got to #1 here in the UK, as it also did in Australia and Canada. This was the lead single, released the following month, which was also a #1 in the UK and Australia, #3 in Canada and #5 in the US. The album has to date sold more than 17m copies and the single more than 5m – as I said, that’s how to make an entrance! This track was written by Amy Lee, the lead vocalist, and fellow band members Ben Moody and David Hodges, and the additional male vocals come from Paul McCoy of the band 12 Stones (no, I haven’t heard of them, either). Amy has said that the song has several themes, one of which is the awakening in her mind to the things which are missing from her life. In keeping with the theme of women taking a lead which has been running through these songs, that seems an appropriate point on which to close.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my nod of respect towards women on International Women’s Day. I’m lucky enough to have been born and lived my life in a country which, for the most part, treats women as equals, but even so we still have a way to go to live up to the ideals set out at the beginning of this piece. Others are much less fortunate, and even in countries which consider themselves to be civilised there are many ways in which women are treated as second class citizens. I’m not expecting the music I’m playing today to change the world, but hopefully it will at least make you think.

See you again soon 🤘