Guyville, Explained

I was dating this guy and I was living in this apartment where I was writing the songs for Guyville. It belonged to some friends who had vacated and they’d left behind these cassette tapes, and one was Exile On Main St. I was listening to it and thinking about how to make a record, and I was fighting with [this guy], and he said, “Well, why don’t you do that one? That’s a double record” — but he was kind of sarcastic about it and so I was like, “Okay! I will!” I listened to it over and over again and it became like my source of strength — my involvement with Exile was like an imaginary friend; whatever Mick was saying, it was a conversation with him, or I was arguing with him and it was kind of an amalgam of the men in my life. That was why I called it “Guyville” — friends, romantic interests, these teacher types — telling me what I needed to know, what was cool or what wasn’t cool. I developed a very private relationship with this record, listening to it again and again and again.

Jessica Hopper just published an oral history of Liz Phair’s Exile in Guyville over at Spin.