Break It Down: Passionate Kisses

I first heard Lucinda Williams's "Passionate Kisses" via the Mary Chapin Carpenter cover that was all over the radio my first year in college. A few years later, I sought out the original version, but I still like to maintain that during the 90s when a lot of other women had a Liz or a Courtney, I had a Lucinda.

None of her work is even ostensibly feminist in that "woman-power" sort of way, but I never felt particularly empowered by riot grrrl anthems. The message might seem trite now, looking back twenty years later, but "Passionate Kisses" was one of the first songs where I heard a woman literally demand it all, from the mundane, like pens that work and a firm mattress, to more serious things like time alone to think, and the hook, "passionate kisses." I call this one of the great "all-girl" road trip songs, and it does seem almost perfectly tailored for the soundtrack to a female buddy movie.

Okay, aside from that, the message isn't a hugely important one, but in a world where women are still afraid to demand, let alone ask for politely, the things they want, it seemed important to 20-year-old me.