RFI: song about Sylvia Plath (Bright Eyes?)

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I seem to recall some singer recently releasing a song about Sylvia Plath - the gist of which was something along the lines of how he'd got with her she wouldn't have topped herself because they would have been able to comfort each other in their paaain.

I have a feeling it may have been Bright Eyes or someone similar but can't find any evidence... anyone got any ideas?

― Wyndham Earl, Wednesday, 9 July 2003 09:39 (twenty-two years ago)

Also - does anyone know anything about a reputed Bright Eyes/Her Space Holiday feud over a girl early on in their career? i seem to remember reading an article in NME saying something about a girl leaving Marc for Conor and it being the source of some bitterness?

Just interested to know for the purposes of research..

― Wyndham Earl, Wednesday, 9 July 2003 09:46 (twenty-two years ago)

Ryan Adams. One of maybe 3 or 4 good songs on the otherwise underwhelming 'Gold'.

― Jake Ellwood, Wednesday, 9 July 2003 11:43 (twenty-two years ago)

That's really freaking awful. More reasons to hate him.

― kate (kate), Wednesday, 9 July 2003 11:48 (twenty-two years ago)

There's a much better song called "Sylvia Plath" that Peter Laughner wrote. It was covered about 12 years ago, rather spectacularly, by Death of Samantha. "Let's see you do one thing as perfect as Sylvia Plath/Yeah, let's see you do one thing as senselessly cruel as Sylvia Plath..."

― Douglas (Douglas), Wednesday, 9 July 2003 12:07 (twenty-two years ago)

.. Yeah - The Laughner song ( and especially the D.o.S. cover) is great.

― dave225 (Dave225), Wednesday, 9 July 2003 12:11 (twenty-two years ago)

AGREED. In all caps, no less.

― Hurlothrumbo (hurlothrumbo), Wednesday, 9 July 2003 12:46 (twenty-two years ago)

"Bloody Ice Cream" by Bikini Kill:

The Sylvia Plath story is told to girls who write
They want us to think that to be a girl poet means you have to die.
Who is it that told me all girls who write must suicide?

I've another good one for you, we are turning cursive letters into
knives.

― Jeanne Fury (Jeanne Fury), Wednesday, 9 July 2003 13:26 (twenty-two years ago)

And don't the Bangles have a song called "Bell Jar" or something? (The Laughner ---> Death of Samantha one is much better, though.)

― chuck, Wednesday, 9 July 2003 14:06 (twenty-two years ago)

If anyone artist I liked EVER wrote a song about Sylvia Plath I would burn all their records and deny I'd ever like them.

― Dadaismus (Dada), Wednesday, 9 July 2003 14:09 (twenty-two years ago)

Slyvia Plath as works her way into a Bonaduces song.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Wednesday, 9 July 2003 14:20 (twenty-two years ago)

In an essay she wrote, Feeling The Space, Yoko Ono said she felt like "a singing Sylvia Plath, half my head out of the oven looking for a pen to write my last beauty" (paraphrased as I can't find it online)

― Alexis (Alexis), Wednesday, 9 July 2003 21:50 (twenty-two years ago)

The worst thing about that song is that he doesn't ever just dream about being with the true Sylvia Plath, rather he repeats, "Oh I wish I had a Sylvia Plath." I'm sure this is just because she's dead but by turning her life into an archetypal figure, some sort of representation of remarkably talented and profoundly depressed, he really trivializes her death and her literature. Shitass lyrics aside, the sucks too. And I really like Whiskeytown so Ryan Adams' Gold gets me all the more livid because he had have been capable of more.

― Claire (Claire Miccio), Thursday, 10 July 2003 20:52 (twenty-two years ago)

"of a remarkably talented and profoundly depressed woman..."
"shitass lyrics aside, the song sucks too"

I type too fast.

― Claire (Claire Miccio), Thursday, 10 July 2003 20:54 (twenty-two years ago)

I thought is was kinda funny that the "Sylvia Plath" he sings of in that song comes off more like an "Edie Sedgewick" type.

― Charles McCain (Charles McCain), Thursday, 10 July 2003 20:58 (twenty-two years ago)

I agree. Edie Sedgewick was mad, would get drunk and nuts and dance on tables more the type to get Adams "loaded up on gin" err whatever the hell he was thinking with that song. Despite my near nil expertise on Plath, I highly doubt she fit the description of "a Sylvia Plath" he describes.

― Claire (Claire Miccio), Thursday, 10 July 2003 22:51 (twenty-two years ago)

Killdozer had a great song about Flannery O'Connor called "Lupus".

― scott seward, Friday, 11 July 2003 02:10 (twenty-two years ago)

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