Mum's the Word: the Mothers Mixtape

No more drama:

“Save all the drama,” intoned the older, but not yet wiser Roxanne Shanté in 1992, “cause here comes the Big Mama.” At that point, eight years after her debut at age 14, the Queensbridge native proceeded to destroy all challengers in a lyrical firestorm of brutal intensity. Although the song “Big Mama” was not about Shanté’s own, real motherhood, it did have as its theme her self-perceived maternal position—as one of the first ever female rappers--in the extended hip hop family (e.g., sampling her signature line from an earlier record: “I gave birth to most of them MCs”). She was always from the old school of boasting rhymes, but this was a diss record of epic proportion, and a truly grand (or rather, grandiose) finale to her underappreciated music career (which, in unlikely fashion, gave way to an academic career culminating in a PhD in psychology -- not bad for a teenaged mom from the projects). Indeed, it seemed the grown-up Shanté went just that little bit too far on Big Mama, and on the last album (“The Bitch is Back”), trying too obviously to reinvent herself as a female gangster, pandering to the commercial tastes of the times. In the end, rap records in the 1990s were bought by boys and she could never fit the right mold; long-time fans recognize more of the clever 14-year old Roxanne in modern day interview clips as Dr. Shanté than they did in the cover of “The Bitch”, which depicted a blinged-up, gun-toting, uh, ho.

Melodrama:

A couple of other records about mothers, or which invoke mothers, exude not just drama, but supreme melodrama. When Morrissey calls out for his mummy in The Smiths’ “I Know it’s Over”, it’s because he’s sure he’s half-buried in his grave already: either his relationship or his life has gone inexorably (and theatrically—hey, it’s Morrissey) down the tubes. Sidetrack: for a hilarious look at how his ego is as big as his sense of drama, see this first person account of a crew member who was fired after the first day on the job... I notice that Mary Weiss’s 1965 hairstyle is in style at the moment (in Dublin, at least), and that new bands like Glasvegas (this year) and the Raveonettes (last year) are again name-checking the Shangri-La’s, whose “I Can Never Go Home Anymore” might be the only pop song more tragically melodramatic than “I Know it’s Over”. Like Roxanne Shanté, Weiss is also from the borough of Queens and grew up as a tough-girl performer, but in her music she—unlike the Queen of Emceein’--was able to show her vulnerable side, too.

I’m gonna hide
If she don’t leave me alone
I’m gonna run away

True life drama:

The teenaged Mary Weiss had not been speaking to her mother for a few years at that point and she was in tears during the recording, so this was not just a case of drama for the sake of performance… Two more on the Mothers Mixtape come from true life. Tricky called a whole album (Maxinquaye) after his mom, who committed suicide when he was five years old, and reportedly said he felt her singing his lyrics though him. As in the track Aftermath, maybe?

~

The back story of the Sex Pistols’ aural essay on abortion, Bodies, was always that the protagonist Pauline from Birmingham, “who lived in a tree”, was a mentally ill groupie who wrote to John Lydon and eventually turned up at his door in London. Only 18 years later in his memoir did he reveal another event—this time from his childhood--that inspired one of the band’s most powerful songs, and yep, it had to do with his mom (and a miscarriage, and an outhouse). Lydon’s Irish immigrant mother makes a second appearance on the Mothers Mixtape, as the focus of PiL’s Death Disco…

Here’s the full track listing for the Mothers Mixtape:

Mamma Mia - ABBA
Blues In The Night – Dinah Shore
That's All Right Mama - Elvis Presley
Mother Popcorn, Pt. 1 - James Brown
Harper Valley PTA - Jeannie C Riley
Mother Queen of My Heart - Jimmie Rodgers
Mama Tried - Merle Haggard
Welfare Mothers - Neil Young & Crazy Horse
Death Disco - Public Image Limited
Mama's Boy - Ramones
Have You Seen Your Mother Baby Standing in the Shadows - Rolling Stones
Big Mama - Roxanne Shanté
Bodies - Sex Pistols
Mother Mo Chroi - Shane MacGowan and the Popes
I Can Never Go Home Anymore - Shangri-Las
Mama Used to Say - Shinehead
I Know It's Over – The Smiths
Aftermath - Tricky

Only two of the above overlap with Bob Dylan’s mixtape:

Mama Don't Allow It - Julia Lee
Daddy Loves Mommyo - Tommy Duncan
Mama Didn't Lie - Jan Bradley
I'll Go to the Church Again With Momma - Buck Owens
Mama Told Me Not to Come - Randy Newman
Mama Get the Hammer - Bobby Peterson Quintet
Mama Talk To Your Daughter - J. B. Lenoir
A Mother's Love - Earl King
Mama He Treats Your Daughter Mean - Ruth Brown
Let Old Mother Nature Have Her Way - Carl Smith
Mother Earth - Memphis Slim
Mother in Law - Ernie K-Doe
Mother in Law Blues - Little Junior Parker
Mama Tried - Merle Haggard
Gonna Tell Your Mother - Jimmy McCracklin
Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby Standing in the Shadows - Rolling Stones
Mother Fuyer - Dirty Red
Mama Said Knock You Out - LL Cool J