How was Liz Phair's 'Exile in Guyville' a "riposte" on the Rolling Stones' 'Exile on Main Street'?

(All down the line.) We'll be watching out for trouble, yeah.
(All down the line.) And we'd better keep the motor running, yeah.
(All down the line.) Well, you can't say yes and you can't say no,
Just be right there when the whistle blows.
I need a sanctified girl with a sanctified mind to help me now.

Yeah, all the people singing all down the line.
Mmmm, watch the men all working, working, yeah. (All down the line.)

(All down the line.) We're gonna open up the throttle yeah.
(All down the line.) We're gonna bust another bottle, yeah.
(All down the line.)

I need a shot of salvation, baby, once in a while.
Hear the whistle blowing, hear it for a thousand miles.

(All down the line.) We're gonna open up the throttle, yeah.
All down the line, We're gonna bust another bottle, yeah.
Well you can't say yes, and you can't say no,
Just be right there when the whistle blows.
I need a sanctified mind to help me out right now.

Be my little baby for a while.
Won't you be my little baby for a while?

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

You took the car
It was my favorite one
Little white Dart
And drove it to Idaho
You took the horse
It was a thoroughbred
Saddled it up
Out on the interstate
You killed the cat
Put it in antifreeze
Dumped in the trunk
With the rest of the cattlefeed
You took the house
You went and changed the locks
Now I am stuck
Living out of a box

I think I've been taken
For everything I own
I've been hurt so badly
I'm alone, baby, I'm alone

You left me nothing
You left me nothing
Johnny Sunshine
You left me nothing
You left me nothing
Johnny Sunshine
You left me nothing
You left me nothing
Johnny Sunshine
You left me nothing
You left me nothing

You Saturday night women, now, you just ape and clown,
You don't do nothing but tear my reputation down.
Stop breaking down, mama, please, stop breaking down.
Stuff is gonna bust you brains out, baby,
Yeah, it's gonna make you lose your mind.

I love my baby ninety nine degrees,
But that mama got a pistol, laid it down on me.
Stop breaking down, baby, please, stop breaking down.
Stuff is gonna bust you brains out, baby,
Yeah, gonna make you lose your mind.

Ev'ry time I'm walking all down the street
Some pretty woman start breaking down on me.
Stop breaking down, mama, please, stop breaking down.
Stuff is gonna bust your brains out, baby,
Gonna make you lose your mind.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Rifle in hand and two in the bush
Three count delay, I may need a little push
Take out the garbage on Tuesday nights
Seems like the small things
Are the only things I'll fight
Seems like the small things
Are the only things I'll fight

Gunshy, Gunshy, Gunshy, Gunshy

Sea monkeys, do monkey's
Story of my life
Send three bucks to a comic book
Get a house, car and wife
Send three bucks to a comic book
Get a house, car and wife

(wife) Gunshy

May the good Lord shine a light on you,
Make every song (you sing) your favorite tune.
May the good Lord shine a light on you,
Warm like the evening sun.

When you're drunk in the alley, baby, with your clothes all torn
And your late night friends leave you in the cold gray dawn.
Just seemed too many flies on you, I just can't brush them off.
Angels beating all their wings in time,
With smiles on their faces and a gleam right in their eyes.
Whoa, thought I heard one sigh for you,
Come on up, come on up, now, come on up now.

May the good Lord shine a light on you,
Make every song you sing your favorite tune.
May the good Lord shine a light on you,
Warm like the evening sun.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

I was flying into Chicago at night
Watching the lake turn the sky into blue-green smoke
The sun was setting to the left of the plane
And the cabin was filled with an unearthly glow
In 27-D I was behind the wing
Watching landscape roll out
Like credits on a screen
The earth looked like it was lit from within
Like a poorly assembled electrical ball as we moved
Out of the farmlands into the grid
The plan of the city was all that you saw
And all of these people sitting totally still
As the ground raced beneath them thirty thousand feet down

It took an hour, maybe a day
But once I really listened, the noise
Just went away

And I was pretending that I was in a Galaxie 500 video
The stewardess came back and checked on my drink
In the last strings of sunlight, a Bridgette Bardot
There's a hat on my headphones
Along with those eyes that you get
When your circumstance is movie size

It took an hour, maybe a day
But once I really listened, the noise
Just went away

It took an hour, maybe a day
But once I really listened, the noise
Just went away

Soul survivor, soul survivor.
Soul survivor, soul survivor.
Soul survivor, soul survivor.
Soul survivor, soul survivor,
Gonna be the death of me,
It's gonna be the death of me.

When you're flying your flags
All my confidence sags,
You got me packing my bags.
I'll stowaway at sea,
You make me mutiny,
Where you are I won't be,
You're gonna be the death of me.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

The fire you like so much in me
Is the mark of someone adamantly free
But you can't stop yourself from wanting worse
'Cause nothing feeds a hunger like a thirst

Baby I'm tired of fighting
I always wanted you
I broke up at the roadhouse
I wouldn't know you were alive
You haven't seen me for weeks now
It wouldn't shock you if
I drove right out through the back of your eyes
I can't be trusted
They're saying I can't be true
But I only wanted more than I knew

Baby I'm tired of fighting
I always wanted you
I only wanted more than I knew

that's awesome.

hi nowell! if you like liz phair, you should listen to Julie Doiron & The Wooden Stars album. it's great.

I'm not the real Helios Creed, obviously.

And like that . . . . . . he's gone.

christ, you're a bore.

I'm gonna have to agree with this. Most just seems like a cheap marketing gimmick where an unknown can ride into stardom on the coattails of an already famous artist. Kind of like how no-name rappers (like 50 cent and Canibus) went out of their way to make idiotic beefs with famous rappers so they could get noticed in the days when no one gave a shit.

me OTM
-- My name is Kenny (bogususe...), October 10th, 2004.

I just wanted to say that this is possibly the greatest succession of posts I've ever seen on this board.

If nothing else, reading all the lyrics from Exile on Main Street in one sitting with no musical accompaniment in the background makes me love it a little less. Sigh.

So this is what people thought about this album 9 years ago. Yikes.

I was just thinking that roughly the same amount of time has passed between the current day and the release of Spiderland as had passed between Exile on Main St and Exile in Guyville. 20 years and change.

Wait, did someone make a riposte of spiderland?

0 results found for guyderland,so we searched for sunderland. [Return to original search]

Spiderville?

Also not yet that I'm aware of, the idea just crossed my mind bc I saw the Slint movie and thought about the passage of time.

Reading the paired lyrics makes me like both albums more. It's like a weird journal of a relationship between some macho waster and his smarter girlfriend who will soon be outta there. I have to say it kind of works as disjoint communication.

this evolution is kinda sad -- this is about Guyville:

Phair has also stated that most songs on the album were not about her. She commented, "That stuff didn't happen to me, and that's what made writing it interesting. I wasn't connecting with my friends. I wasn't connecting with relationships. I was in love with people who couldn't care less about me. I was yearning to be part of a scene. I was in a posing kind of mode, yearning to have things happen for me that weren't happening. So I wanted to make it seem real and convincing. I wrote the whole album for a couple people to see and know me.

followed by this after the release of Whip Smart (and her somewhat petulant cancellation of the tour, acc to this which was linked through wikipedia http://web.archive.org/web/20091027155035/http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Towers/8529/autobiography/whipsmart.htm)

Attention doesn't fill you up, it depletes you. That's usually at shows. You go afterward to sign some autographs and that's when I see that they're completely waiting for something, like little kids at a birthday party, 'Is there a clown? Is there a pony?' They want something. They want their own personal snippet to go home and remember. All these hungry mouths, all these gaping baby birds. Some people see me as a wounded soul and want to get that. Some people see me as the girl that scorned them in the schoolyard and they want me to be bitchy and bratty. Some people see me as a kind of hippie collegiate. Think of all the different perceptions of what the songs say and that's the variety you get coming back at you. This kind of attention just eats at you.