1. Burn Black
This may seem a contrary choice for my top
Hole song, but I assure you it’s not just for the sake of it. To me, this song has all the elements that
make a Hole song great – it’s sludgy and gnarly but really pretty and melodic, a
bit goth but with a sheen of sparkly pop.
The classic Courtney lyrical themes are all there in full magnificence –
including possibly my favourite lyric of all time: ‘Starts off with magic, some sick religion/That ain’t no vulture,
that’s a fuckin’ pigeon!’.
2. Doll Parts
The first Hole song I ever heard – on The
Box, remember that? – and it’s not an exaggeration to say it changed my
life. I ran straight out and bought the
single, then the album, and listened to nothing else for months – at twelve, my
taste in music, clothes and general aesthetic were basically cemented
forevermore. I am wearing a Peter Pan
collar and ratty vintage cardigan as I write this, no joke.
3. Northern Star
Quite simply, there are few better songs
for screaming with your best friend and a lot to drink at four in the morning –
and I have lost count of how many times Lou, Ali and I have done exactly
this. ‘Oh YEAH, and blessed are the broken and I beg you/No loneliness, no
misery is worth you – I’ll tear his heart out, it’s cold as ice, IT’S MINE’.
4. Dying
This song goes with the one above in my
mind, always – its quieter, sadder little sister. I feel like I once listened to nothing but
the two of them on repeat for about five years.
‘And now I know that love is
dead/They’ve come to bury me – there’s nothing left here to pretend
ANYTHING. Remember, you promised me, I’m
dying, I’m dying, please…’
5. Awful
A far happier moment from Celebrity Skin, which will always remind
me of dancing with Neil at Heaven on a Monday night, when drinks were a pound
and music was all great. Swing low,
sweet cherry…
6. Almost Golden
Courtney’s solo album was really unfairly
slated – even by the lady herself, who still likes to call it ‘that piece of
shit I made in the south of France’. I
disagree – I still love that record, patchy as it is, and think this song in
particular is right up there with her best.
7. Skinny Little Bitch
Don’t get me started on the new Hole
line-up – Micko out of Larrikin Love is no substitute for Eric, pretty-ish as
he may be. But this is the highlight of
the last record – Courtney at her least kooky and most efficient.
8. Gold Dust Woman
Yeah, this is a cover – but Courtney’s love
of Fleetwood Mac is such a key element to her own music that this is like
perfect symmetry. I think in many ways
this is better than the original, and it was on the soundtrack album to The Crow: City of Angels, which I was
weirdly obsessed with at fifteen.
9. Asking For It
I thought long and hard about my
second-favourite LTT song and decided
that it had to be this one – the sick babydoll schtick to the forefront, and
some heartbreaking lyrics. Written just
before her husband’s suicide left her alone with a two-year-old daughter, if
you can listen to the desperation of her pleading ‘if you can live through this with me, I swear that I will die for you’
without welling up, then I don’t want to be friends with you. As Courtney herself says, ‘I’m not psychic
but my lyrics are.’
10. Good Sister/Bad Sister
I had to have something from Pretty On The Inside, and this for me
sums up that record – you can listen to this song and feel the force of what
was to come.
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