Girls Like Us

I was sad to finish "Girls Like Us" last night.  It was a delicious biography of Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon, and Carole King.  Although those three singers belong to my parent's generation, as a teenager I adopted their music as my own.  

When I was twelve or thirteen my sister and I would turn the lights down low in her room, burn candles, and play Carly Simon's album "Anticipation". While listening to the album, we would talk in the way that only sisters can, our own private language of family and shared experience.

Joni Mitchell's "Come in From the Cold" was the anthem of my teen years. I would put the CD in my boom box (such a giant in comparison to my iPod shuffle) and push the repeat button, listening until my sister (she wasn't such a fan of Joni) would pound on her wall to get me to stop.  I still know all the words to "Court and Spark."  

Reading "Girls Like Us" was slightly traumatic in that it ripped away the gauzy layers of possibility from the music.  The author tells her readers who "Blue" and "You're so Vain" were written for.  It's hard to superimpose your own musical fantasy on someone else's reality.  I think, given the choice, I'd rather not know.

What I liked about the book, however, was that it brought these incredible women to life in my living room, revealed their imperfections and artistic genius, and made me feel as though I lived a little bit of their lives.