Screaming without asking permission
Like a limb waking in agony, the riff crawls slowly and heavily. Then it ripped open. Guitars snap. Courtney Love’s voice cuts the surface. Her voice resonates with nails and dust. She spits with teeth clenched: “And the sky was made of amethyst. ” The song exhales fragrance and breathes in violence. Released in 1995, it tastes like rust today. Static before a downpour charged the air around it.
In those meetings Hole was piercing. The drums crashed low, dryly. Guitars buzzed like insects. Violet lurches and crashes. It creates tension in silence before screaming to let it go. Love had performed it live for years. Early 1990s video shows her shrieking it in little clubs, mascars running, her voice broken, eyes wide open. The song always appeared to pursue something just out of sight.
“Go on, take everything”. Like a hammer, the line recurs over and over. Like blood following a slap, the words hang in the mouth. Love fails to provide clarity. She bites. The mix combines melody with scratches and beauty with splinters. The chords provide no comfort. They drive. Half-lit, everything seems near, soaked. The song doesn’t swing. It rushes.
It’s about sitting on the fire escape of his flat, sipping cheap wine and taking a Vicodin while the Chicago sun sets, leaving behind a bejewelled amethyst sky.
(Courtney Love, NME, 2024)
The video runs through velvet and stage lights. Pink filters, ballerinas, feathers abound. Stares, open mouths, outstretched arms abound. Violet performed on MTV while adolescent girls scribed the words on their room walls. Love mentioned Billy Corgan in interviews. Like gum beneath a booth, the tale stays. That heat gives the song its form and helps it to rise.
Violet still sounds rough and unclean. The edge cuts. The breath is hot. The bass is kept close to the floor. The voice travels barefoot on glass. It pulls the audience into its echo and plays loudly at night. It offers no protection. It recalls everything. It burns through the speakers like a cigarette pressed to the skin.
