“Crying like a woman ‘cause I’m mad like a man”: Chrissie Hynde, Gender, and Romantic Irony

Truffin, Sherry R.

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-72688-5_4

“Crying like a woman ‘cause I’m mad like a man”: Chrissie Hynde, Gender, and Romantic Irony

Sherry R. Truffin⁴

Chapter
First Online: 30 March 2018

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Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Music and Literature ((PASTMULI))

Abstract

From the very first song of the Pretenders’s self-titled debut album, whose speaker both is and is not “precious,” through the “complex person” unapologetically reveling in her contradictions on the Loose Screw album, Chrissie Hynde’s songwriting employs a range of distancing tactics and is riddled with multiple forms of irony, including Romantic irony as characterized by Friedrich Schlegel and Anne Mellor. This chapter explores the Romanticism that emerges in Chrissie Hynde’s songwriting with a focus on her use of Romantic irony, taking into consideration the cultural factors that influenced it. Among them are urban development and blight in her native Akron, OH and the infamous killing of four students by the Ohio National Guard at Kent State University while Hynde was a student there.

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Notes

1.
Kurt Loder, “Pretenders: Transcending the Nightmare,” Rolling Stone, Feb. 16, 1984.
2.
Simon Reynolds and Joy Press, The Sex Revolts: Gender, Rebellion, and Rock’n’Roll (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 3.
3.
Ibid., 4.
4.
Ibid., 276–288.
5.
Ibid., 289.
6.
Ibid., 236.
7.
Ibid., 355.
8.
Hynde can, for instance, be grouped with Joni Mitchell, Sinead O’Connor, and Suzanne Vega, “confessional” songwriters who posit authenticity and vulnerability as forms of strength (Reynolds and Press, The Sex Revolts, 249–275).
9.
Anne K. Mellor, English Romantic Irony (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1980), 16.
10.
Martha B. Helfer, “Dorothea Veit-Schlegel’s Florentin: Constructing a Feminist Romantic Aesthetic,” The German Quarterly 69, no. 2 (Spring 1996): 149.
11.
Ibid., 156.
12.
Robert Sayre and Michael Löwy, “Figures of Romantic Anti-Capitalism,” New German Critique 32 (Spring/Summer 1984): 54.
13.
Ibid., 55.
14.
Ibid., 59.
15.
Ibid., 55.
16.
Ibid., 56.
17.
Chrissie Hynde, Reckless: My Life as a Pretender (New York: Doubleday, 2015), 5.
18.
Ibid., 1.
19.
Ibid., 5.
20.
Ibid., 16.
21.
Ibid., 8.
22.
Ibid., 20.
23.
Ibid., 19.
24.
Ibid., 22.
25.
Andrea Juno, “Chrissie Hynde,” Vol. 1 of Angry Women in Rock (New York: Juno Books, 1996), 190.
26.
Kurt Loder, Pretenders Rolling Stone Interview, March 21, 1980, Rolling Stone Collection, ARC 0114, Box AV3, Object 5, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Library and Archive (hereafter RRHFA).
27.
Sayre and Löwy, 55.
28.
Other examples include “Watching the Clothes,” “Millionaires ,” “No Guarantee,” “Holly wood Perfume,” “Nails in the Road,” “Who’ s Who,” “The Biker,” “ Time,” and “The Nothing Maker.”
29.
Juno , Angry Women in Rock, 190.
30.
Hynde, Reckless, 73–82.
31.
Qtd in Gillian G. Gaar, She’s a Rebel: The History of Women in Rock & Roll (Berkeley: Seal Press, 1992), 278.
32.
Loder , Pretenders Rolling Stone Interview, Object 7.
33.
Ibid.
34.
Sayre and Löwy, 60–61.
35.
Ibid., 61.
36.
Ibid., 58.
37.
Pretenders. “You Know Who Your Friends Are,” in Loose Screw, Artemis Records 751 153-2, 2002, compact disc.
38.
Pretenders. “When I Change My Life,” in Get Close, Sire Records 9 25488-2, 1986, compact disc.
39.
Ken Tucker, “O Yes, They’re the Great Pretenders,” Rolling Stone, April 17, 1980, 56.
40.
Ibid., 55.
41.
Ibid., 56.
42.
VH1 Legends: The Pretenders, VH1, Oct 26, 1999. ARC-0221 Series 1, Box 14, Cassette 10. RRHFA.
43.
Reynolds and Press, The Sex Revolts, 239.
44.
Amy Raphael, “Chrissie Hynde,” in Trouble Girls: The Rolling Stone Book of Women in Rock, ed. Barbara O’ Dair (New York: Random House, 1997), 303.
45.
Chrissie Hynde, “Advice to Chick Rockers,” Pretenders, http://pretenders.org/advice.htm. Accessed July 16, 2016.
46.
Keir Keightley, ‘Reconsidering Rock” in The Cambridge Companion to Rock and Pop, eds. Simon Frith, Will Straw, and John Street (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 126.
47.
Ibid., 131.
48.
Ibid., 124.
49.
Ibid., 135.
50.
Ibid., 136.
51.
Legends: The Pretenders.
52.
Juno , Angry Women in Rock, 198.
53.
Chrissie Hynde, Reckless, 151.
54.
Hynde, Reckless, 148.
55.
Juno , Angry Women in Rock, 191.
56.
Hynde, Reckless, 149.
57.
VHI Legends: The Pretenders.
58.
Time Life, “Chrissie Hynde,” Time Life History of Rock’n’Roll Interviews, ARC 0314, Box 1, Binder 1, Object 36, RRHFA. Chrissie Hynde’s quotes from Time Life History of Rock’n’Roll courtesy of Direct Holdings Group.
59.
Loder , Pretenders Rolling Stone Interview, Object 4.
60.
Hynde, Reckless, 32–33 and Loder , Pretenders Rolling Stone Interviews, Object 4.
61.
Hynde, Reckless, 33.
62.
VHI Legends: The Pretenders.
63.
Carrie Havranek, Women Icons of Popular Music: The Rebels, Rockers, and Renegades (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2008), 185.
64.
Time Life, “Chrissie Hynde.”
65.
Mellor , English Romantic Irony, 16.
66.
Ibid., vii.
67.
Ibid.
68.
Ibid., 4.
69.
Ibid., 5.
70.
Ibid., 8.
71.
Ibid.
72.
Ibid., 27–28.
73.
Juno , Angry Women in Rock, 190.
74.
Pretenders. “Don’t Get Me Wrong,” in Get Close, Sire Records 9 25488-2, 1986, compact disc.
75.
Pretenders. “Mystery Achievement,” in Pretenders, Sire Records 6083-2, 1986, compact disc. Originally released in 1979.
76.
Pretenders. “My Baby,” in Get Close, Sire Records 9 25488-2, 1986, compact disc.
77.
Pretenders. “Kinda Nice, I Like It,” in Loose Screw, Artemis Records 751 153-2, 2002, compact disc.
78.
Pretenders. “I Should Of,” in Loose Screw, Artemis Records 751 153-2, 2002, compact disc.
79.
“House of Cards” is about finding amusement in the knowledge of a lover’s lies; “Tourni quet” is a request for a partner to lie; “Sweet Nuthin” is about lowering one’s expectations to the point at which one demands neither true nor lies from one’s partner.
80.
Hynde, Reckless, 247.
81.
Naomi Wolf, Fire With Fire: The New Female Power and How it Will Change the 21st Century (New York: Random House, 1994).
82.
Hynde, “Advice to Chick Rockers.” (The dollar sign in parentheses appears in the original as a way of indicating that Hynde means “clean up” in two senses: physical and financial).
83.
Juno , Angry Women in Rock, 193.
84.
Ibid., 191.
85.
Ibid., 192.
86.
Time Life, Chrissie Hynde.
87.
Hynde, Reckless, 117–121.
88.
Time Life, Chrissie Hynde.
89.
Loder , Pretenders Rolling Stone Interview, Object 8.
90.
Tucker , “O Yes, They’re the Great Pretenders,” 56.
91.
Katherine Dieckmann, “Courtney Love,” in Trouble Girls: The Rolling Stone Book of Women in Rock, ed. Barbara O’ Dair (New York: Random House, 1997), 466.
92.
Havranek , Women Icons of Popular Music, 180.
93.
Susan McClary, Feminine Endings: Music, Gender and Sexuality (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1991), 154.
94.
Time Life, Chrissie Hynde.
95.
Loder , Pretenders Rolling Stone Interview, Object 4.
96.
Loder, Pretenders Rolling Stone Interview, Object 7.
97.
Time Life, Chrissie Hynde.
98.
Loder , Pretenders Rolling Stone Interview, Object 6.
99.
Loder , Pretenders Rolling Stone Interview, Object 7.
100.
Juno , Angry Women in Rock, 196.
101.
Loder , Pretenders Rolling Stone Interview, Object 7.
102.
Time Life, Chrissie Hynde.
103.
Juno , Angry Women in Rock, 193.
104.
Diane Hoeveler, Romantic Androgyny: The Women Within (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1990), 6.
105.
Ibid.
106.
Ibid.
107.
Ibid., 9.
108.
Ibid., 7.
109.
Nicola Trott, Review of Romantic Androgyny: The Women Within, The Review of English Studies 45, no. 177 (Feb 1994): 114.
110.
Reynolds and Press, The Sex Revolts, 15–18.
111.
Elaine Showalter, A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Brontë to Lessing (Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1977), 264.
112.
Ibid., 280.
113.
Ibid., 264.
114.
Ibid.
115.
Ibid., 280.
116.
Ibid., 289.
117.
Ibid., 287.
118.
Ibid., 280.
119.
Ibid.
120.
Ibid.
121.
Hoeveler , Romantic Androgyny, 6.
122.
Pretenders. “Lovers of Today,” in Pretenders, Sire Records 6083-2, 1986, compact disc. Originally released in 1979.
123.
Pretenders. “Clean-Up Woman,” in Loose Screw, Artemis Records 751 153-2, 2002, compact disc.
124.
Hynde, Reckless, 240.
125.
Ibid., 175–176.
126.
Pretenders. “ Precious,” in Pretenders, Sire Records 6083-2, 1986, compact disc. Originally released in 1979.
127.
Ibid.
128.
Ibid.
129.
Reynolds and Press, The Sex Revolts, 2–18.
130.
Pretenders, “ Precious.”
131.
Ibid.
132.
Hynde, Reckless, 180.
133.
Pretenders, “ Precious.”
134.
Pretenders. “Bad Boys Get Spanked,” in Pretenders II, Sire Records 3572-2, 1990, compact disc. Originally released in 1981.
135.
Ibid.
136.
Ibid.
137.
Pretenders. “I’m a Mother,” in Last of the Independents, Sire Records 9 45572-2, 1994, compact disc.
138.
Ibid.
139.
Ibid.
140.
Ibid.
141.
Pretenders. “Brass in Pocket,” in Pretenders, Sire Records 6083-2, 1986, compact disc. Originally released in 1979.
142.
Tucker , “O Yes, They’re the Great Pretenders,” 56.
143.
Pretenders. “Sense of Purpose,” in Packed, Sire Records 9 26219-2, 1990, compact disc.
144.
Ibid.
145.
Pretenders. “I Hurt You,” in Learning to Crawl, Sire Records 923980-2, 1983, compact disc.
146.
Michelle Massé, In the Name of Love: Women, Masochism, and the Gothic (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992), 42.
147.
Pretenders. “Tattooed Love Boys,” in Pretenders, Sire Records 6083-2, 1986, compact disc. Originally released in 1979.
148.
Ibid.
149.
Ibid.
150.
Pretenders. “97 7,” in Last of the Independents, Sire Records 9 45572-2, 1994, compact disc.
151.
Pretenders. “Almost Perfect,” in Break Up the Concrete, Shangri-La Music 101009, 2008, compact disc.
152.
Ibid.

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Department of English, Campbell University, Buies Creek, NC, USA
Sherry R. Truffin

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Mississippi College, Clinton, MS, USA
James Rovira

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Truffin, S.R. (2018). “Crying like a woman ‘cause I’m mad like a man”: Chrissie Hynde, Gender, and Romantic Irony. In: Rovira, J. (eds) Rock and Romanticism. Palgrave Studies in Music and Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72688-5_4

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72688-5_4
Published: 30 March 2018
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
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Online ISBN: 978-3-319-72688-5
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