Man-struation
Last week I had a song come out, it’s called Blood. Well it was more like one and a half songs really but the one I want to focus on is Blood. I’m happy with the other half a song too, its called PullnUp. I wrote it very quickly when I wanted to take song writing less seriously. Probably in reaction to Blood. Can I tell a quick story? If not then stop reading. Or skip the next probably 4 or 5 lines and be very confused.
I was riding the metro north train out of Manhattan with my partner, Alex. It was a very crowded train. Alex went to go use the bathroom, she had just gotten her period and needed to go deal with it. The bathrooms on these trains are gnarly on a good day so I shook my head sadly to myself, poor Alex. She came back 2 minutes later.
“ there are no trash cans in the bathroom” she said.
“What?” I said even though I heard her. A conductor was squeezing his way towards us so Alex asked him,
“ why are there no trash cans in the bathroom?”
“ There’s a trash can, we just had to seal them up. people we’re putting bombs and firecrackers in them”.
Whoa.
“ What should we do with trash?”
“ Hold onto it or you can throw it on the ground I guess.” Jesus.
Alex had already put her tampon into a plastic clamshell to-go box we had. Was it the end of the world? No. Do I expect all ticket purchases to include waste removal? No, but it was a splash of cold water on the sleeping face of someone who doesn’t menstruate ( me ) to be reminded yet again that much of the publicly accessible world is not particularly welcome to those who DO menstruate. If I was a betting non-manstruator I’d wager whoever was putting little bombs in the trashcan doesn’t menstruate either.
Anyway, after that I wrote the song that came out last week. It’s not just about periods, its about blood and all these different ways we think about it but I’d never heard a song that talks about periods and was written by a man. I figured I should add to that pretty skimpy pile. There are plenty of good songs already about getting dumped or wanting to bone. Not that I don’t love those too, I’m just seeking to fill gaps in the market. I’m a real entrepreneur like that.
here’s the song.
love yas.