I engaged in lots of strategic voting when I filled out my list of the 10 greatest songs by women for WXPN. I didn’t agonize over which Joni Mitchell song to include, because I figure she’ll have 20 entries among the 885-song countdown. She doesn’t need my help. And while the rules allow any song sung by a woman, I whittled down my initial list of 40-odd tunes by keeping only the ones written by women as well.
From there I gave preference to artists or songs I though were likely to be overlooked by the masses, and put them near the top of the ballot so they would garner more points and, if there are a few like-minded listeners out there, a spot on the final list. Kristin Hersh is a good example.
Hersh was an indie-rock darling for a bit in the late ’80s when Throwing Muses, the band she started in high school with stepsister Tanya Donnelly, made a splash on the college radio scene. The Muses continued after Donnelly left to form Belly in the early ’90s, when Hersh also kicked off a solo career with 1994’s acoustic “Hips and Makers.” This arresting number caught my ear then and still sounds riveting today.
It was one of four tracks that Hersh recorded with strings for an EP she released the same year. The dramatic arrangement suits the anguish of her performance.
Hersh has released 11 solo LPs, some acoustic, some electric, and authored two well-regarded memoirs, but she still flies mostly under the radar. This track is from her latest album, the largely acoustic “Clear Pond Road,” released in September.
