"Fuck and Run"

Liz Phair
(Matador, 1993)

Often, Phair takes men by the balls to fondle or crush their seat of power. The imaginary heroine here is for powerless girls who have been fondled and crushed by men. Like the song's professed inspiration, Keith Richards's monumental "Happy," Phair lets her thoughts spill forward behind some driving guitar and drums, but she saves the chorus and title phrase till the end, when the heroine pinpoints her problem in those two short, sharp words. As with that other "limited" singer, the passion then breaking in her voice can make you cry.

-- Franklin Soults