Shirley Gnome is a c*untry gal who aims to offend

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      The question for Shirley Gnome is a simple but perfectly valid one: how do you know when you’ve gone too far? There are many (upstanding Christians, professional censors, and your mom) who would argue that the East Van–based singer has no idea where the line is on her just-released sophomore record, C*untry Music.

      In all fairness, it’s hard to blame them.

      Consider Gnome’s delicately titled “Assflower”, a doo-wop torch song that has her wondering how to best celebrate the end of a three-week vacation fling. Determined to give her lover something she’s been saving her whole life, she decides to say “Fuck it” and take it up the poop chute for the first time. Sample lyrics? How about: “Christian teens they love the fact that they keep their chastity intact/So let’s go to heaven, let’s give it a try/If Jesus loves anal then why can’t I?” And on the more delicate front: “I just bought some lube/And I just took a shit.”

      The outrageousness doesn’t stop there. Half soft acoustic guitars and campfire harp, and half Texas two-step, “Menage a Twat” has a reluctant Gnome rebuffing a threesome with: “I don’t care how drunk I am the vag is a nasty place/It’s like a baby slug crawled into a peach, and the peach began to rot.” That’s followed by: “And it rolled under the couch and it got covered in hair/And the bitch somehow she found it and she shoved it in her underwear.”

      As for “Go Fuck Yourself”, that one will be self-explanatory to any guy who’s ever come home at 1 in the morning convinced that he’s going to get some, no matter how comatose his partner looks. It’s all comedy gold—assuming, of course, you see the humour in South Park, The Onion, National Lampoon, and everything ever released by the Farrelly brothers. And if some of it goes too far, that’s exactly the point.

      “I usually try to put one line in every song that’s totally over the line, and then I reel it back,” Gnome says. “There’s always one line where I take it too far. And I like that. I figure you gotta offend somebody, or you’re probably not doing your job.”

      Looking fabulously trashier than Kid Rock on a gorgeous fall day, the singer is kicking back in her East Vancouver back yard with the Straight, wearing a pink sun hat, what may or may not be a blond wig, and a Shirley Gnome shirt that reads “I chose masturbation over breakfast.” As she peppers her conversation with language that would impress a trucker with Tourette’s, a small child plays just over the fence next door.

      Quite rightly, Gnome notes that when she does manage to make someone squirm, it usually says more about the person doing the squirming than it does about her.

      “I have a song that ends with me, as a character, singing about getting herpes from a relationship that’s broken up,” the singer says with a laugh. “There’s a couple of times where that joke has really made people uncomfortable, but it’s different with every crowd. It’s like you’re taking samplings of people’s STDs I guess. Sometimes people will be like, ‘Whooaaa.’ But that doesn’t bother me because I don’t think having herpes is that big of a deal.”

      The singer has no problem nailing down the day when she officially started, as Hank Williams III would say, putting the cunt back in country and the dick back in Dixie. A friend needed musical accompaniment for a burlesque show at the WISE Hall on April 14, 2009, and Gnome was happy to oblige, having spent years kicking around material at home.

      “I’ve always written silly, somewhat smutty songs, probably for 8 or 9 years,” she says. “When I started playing the guitar, it was one of the first things I did. I had one song for four years, and my friends would laugh hysterically about that—they loved that I only had one song. I never meant for it to become an actual project until my friend asked me to sing that song at a burlesque show.

      “I went up,” Gnome continues, “not as Shirley, but as a nameless performer, and it went over so well that people kept asking ‘Where’s your CD?’ So I thought, ‘Well, I should write more of these and make an actual album.’ ”


      Shirley Gnome sits down with the Georgia Straight.

      That would lead to the release of 2009’s Ho Down, featuring such NSFW tracks as “Men Like to Come on My Face”, “Blew My Load”, and “Penis Hand”. A foray into comedy clubs followed, with her song-based routine eventually landing her first place (and a $20,000 cheque) this year in Patrick Maliha’s the People’s Champ of Comedy Competition. With C*untry Music, Gnome shows no interest in retooling her show for a family audience, which explains country-gold tunes like “Five Boner Night”, “The Fucking Song”, and the ode to tiny twangers that is “James and the Giant Peach”.

      The singer is evasive about what she gets up to when she’s not writing the kind of material that fits right in between Ween’s “Piss Up a Rope” and David Allen Coe’s “Cum Stains on the Pillow”. In addition to having great, soulful pipes, she knows what she’s doing as a songwriter. The tunes on C*untry Music are professionally recorded and smartly arranged by crack musicians. That Gnome was determined to get things right says something about her musical diet during her younger years: she’s studied the pros.

      “I basically started playing the guitar because of Adam Sandler—I got one of his records as a child,” Gnome admits. “My parents did not censor me from it, and I’m very happy about that. South Park is another thing—all the music from their movies is fucking hilarious.”

      Fucking hilarious also works as a catchy, all-purpose tag for Gnome, and the singer acknowledges that she’s onto something. The only downside to the way things have started to take off is that, on at least a couple of occasions, she’s found herself saddled with the kind of folks who seem determined to put the cunt in country music fans.

      “From the small exposure that I’ve gotten from this, I realize that I could have a pretty good cult following,” she says. “I already kind of do. There are some people who are obsessively fan-ish, and then some who are terrifying. They come to shows totally drunk, screaming the lyrics out to where they get in the way of the show.

      “Whatever I’m doing, they are liking it on a level that’s satisfying them deep inside,” Gnome continues. “Maybe it’s making a lot of crazy people feel normal. I don’t think some people are able to separate the songs from me. It’s all the same thing to them. As cartoonish as I am, I am a real person.”

      A real person who happens to write lyrics like the following “Mementos of Love” lines: “Well I changed the sheets again/And my heart just filled with pain/From that time that you hit my G-spot/And we both made that nasty stain.” Too far? That’s your problem, not Shirley Gnome’s.

      Shirley Gnome plays a C*untry Music CD release party at the Sin Bin Sports Grill on Friday (October 12).

      Comments

      13 Comments

      Christian Teen

      Oct 10, 2012 at 5:31pm

      I like it in the bum!

      Wow

      Oct 10, 2012 at 5:43pm

      The Georgia Straight is really getting desperate printing stories like these. I will never give this person any more of the attention she craves. You people are turning the Straight into a trashy newspaper .

      Pat Crowe

      Oct 10, 2012 at 11:59pm

      I like the cuntry in the top pic behind her.
      Is that Mission?

      Big Hard Shirley Fan

      Oct 11, 2012 at 12:22am

      If you've ever been to a Shirley show, this article doesn't do her songs credit. They are more than just shock humor for the sake of offensiveness - her lyrics are witty, insightful, and even brave in their hilarious depiction of people's sex lives, and always positive and fun-loving too! I would reserve judgement until you go see her live - then you'll see that the trash is tongue-in-cheek and the humor is based in some deep, embarrassing truths that - yes - may offend people who can't be honest with themselves! Go Shirley!

      Mike Usinger

      Oct 11, 2012 at 9:34am

      @Big Hard Shirley Fan: which part of the article doesn't do her songs credit? This part?: "In addition to having great, soulful pipes, she knows what she’s doing as a songwriter. The tunes on C*untry Music are professionally recorded and smartly arranged by crack musicians. That Gnome was determined to get things right says something about her musical diet during her younger years: she’s studied the pros?

      Big Hard Shirley Fan

      Oct 11, 2012 at 11:12am

      @Mike Usinger I meant that the songs are depicted here as being funny because they are purposefully offensive rather than being funny because the lyrics are witty and insightful. Maybe it's both? but I relate to the wit and truth of her hilarious songs, it's more than just dirty words, and I didn't read that side of it in this article! I haven't heard the new album but I bet it sounds as good as you say it does!

      Holden Mcgroin

      Oct 11, 2012 at 9:50pm

      Shirley Gnome is awesome sauce.

      yawn

      Oct 12, 2012 at 4:23pm

      "Fucking hilarious also works as a catchy, all-purpose tag for Gnome" Are you FUCKING SERIOUS? Put yer crack pipe down Usinger and stuff that boner back in your tighty-whities, Usinger I've seen her schtick and it's not funny, not interesting. 14:59 and counting. She sure ain't no Maclean & Maclean.

      Christian Teen

      Oct 12, 2012 at 4:36pm

      More in the bum please!

      Raj Pannu

      Oct 15, 2012 at 6:09pm

      The video was hilarious. I laughed so hard.

      I don’t think it’s unreasonable for a writer to draw attention to the fundamental component of a song – The words. People will only be offended by what they see reflected there.

      Similar language can be found in Act III of Hamlet where Hamlet tells Ophelia that he wants to lie face down in her “country”. The poor thing ends up drowning herself. Young women have other options these days – I hope. “Venus and Adonis” is even more transgressive: It features a mature Venus giving very precise commands to a young Adonis. How shocking! (Brief aside: Lady writers who’ve married well should check out Tiger's Heart in Woman's Hide by local author Fred Faulkes.)

      20th century literary innovators such as Forough Farrokhzad, Anna Akhmatova, Kamala Das, Alfonsina Storni, Amrita Pritam, and even Virginia Woolf all had their reputations preyed upon by common vulgarians who tittered about their “moral character”. Were their struggles all in vain? We only have fragments of Sappho to guide us, and that is enough: “I say someone in another time will remember us.”

      A creative person should not waste any time being concerned about the petty judgements made by “elegant” bullies, especially those Lady MacBeth types who hide their 3-way coke-addled skeletons in some dull, shady-grey designer closet.

      Ignore the plastic Ken and Barbies of this world. Time eventually reveals what gutless pussies they actually are.

      Karma is a tough bitch.

      Follow your bliss.

      Never be afraid to embrace your inner drag queen.