i wish i was a girl
Release Date: 3/99
Album: THE SCAPEGOAT FACTORY
Writer: ADAM MARSLAND
Lyrics:
She says I envision making love
Like I'm stepping around a trap
Weíre face to face but we can't face it down
We just dance around the gap
Every time you come around
Every time you come around
I feel unworthy of what I've got
And I feel guilty for what I'm not
I wish I was a girl
Then I could lose myself forever
I wish I was a girl
Then I could love myself
She is all that she's feeling and
Her emotions see me through
I could disavow anything
But I canít stare down that blue
She says that there are ways
That I could meet her gaze
Letting go and letting in
Feelis like ripping off my skin
I wish I was a girl
Then I could go as deep as you do
I wish I was a girl
Then I could love myself
Diving into the deep but I won't grab the rope
I can't cope
I want a womb with a view
Be the cake that eats you
I deny therefore I am
I wish I was a girl
Then I could lose myself forever
I wish I was a girl
Then the world would crash
Adam sez:
THE SCAPEGOAT FACTORY was Cockeyed Ghost's 3rd album and, as the first without James Hazley and Rob Cassell, where I tried to break away from the hard rock constraints of Cockeyed Ghost's first two records...and "I Wish I Was a Girl," as the second track, was a fairly dramatic departure for the band. Even though there was plenty of Weezer influence in the heavy guitars and the dual octave lead vocal, the near-disco bass line, spooky synth and Nile Rodgers guitar break in the bridge were like nothing we'd done up to that point. The atmospheric production values on much of that album were partly because I was overdubbing a lot of the parts myself, and partly as a deliberate choice because of the influence of mid '90s mid-fi bands like Apples In Stereo.
This song was originally written for a two-piece band I briefly had with Manic 5-0 bassist Ineko Saito, in which I played drums and keyboards simultaneously, and in fact we're the only two musicians on this track (Robbie Rist and Phil Rosenthal -- who led a mid '90s Poptopia band called Twenty Cent Crush -- make cameo vocal appearances at the very end). The unique drum fill -- not so subtly inspired by the one on Raspberries' "Overnight Sensation" -- has confused and frustrated a few drummers that have had to approximate it later. It sounds that way because I was playing with one stick, and then muffling the sound with my free hand as part of the fill. Then we compressed the hell out of it! I don't pick up the second stick until the bridge; the bulk of the track is one-handed drumming.
This was one of the more vulnerable -- or provocative, take your pick -- lyrics I had up 'til this point, and had Big Deal not collapsed almost simultaneously with the release of THE SCAPEGOAT FACTORY, this would have been the single from the album. The most inspired lines in the song -- the "womb with a view" part -- were written in the studio under pressure when the tape was already cued to record the lead vocal.
Unbeknownst to me, Counting Crows released a song at about the same time with the same title. I wound up touring with Counting Crows twice but never got around to mentioning it to Adam Duritz...not that he would have particularly cared, but hey.