Imogene

by

Gretchen Peters

Album: Halcyon      Released: 2004

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"Imogene is really a figment of my imagination, but I guess when you go all the way down to the heart of it, she's every girl - and I'm including myself in this - that wasn't part of a clique in high school. She's kind of every girl that sort of didn't turn out, didn't peak in high school, let's say. Let me put it that way," says Peters. "She was one of those people that was sort of a wallflower in high school, and ended up peaking a little bit later, which is I think how it really works for a lot of us." Peters places the character of Imogene in the sort of heroic position of evening the score with those high school characters who place themselves above the rest. It's a sort of revenge story that millions can relate to.

Peters' says the character Imogene is one of her favorite creations: "She's just sort of an every-girl, the one that's not the homecoming queen, the one that's not the cheerleader, the one that was just sort of invisible in high school. And I guess that's why I loved her so much, because I related to her. I think all of us that didn't feel like we were in that crowd felt like we were invisible. And of course at that point you think that's the way it's going to be for the rest of your life. But then you look back 20 years later and you realize those people peaked in high school, and we're just getting started. And she gets revenge. It was fun to write that, because she kind of gets a revenge on the cute-guy football player in the end. So it sort of holds a little bit of a revenge fantasy at the same time. A mild revenge fantasy. Mild. She doesn't murder him or anything. Put it that way."

"It's one of the few songs I've ever written from a drum track, a loop," says Peters. "I just had this drum loop that I really, really liked, and I wanted to use it somehow. I didn't quite know how to use it or what to use it on, and I started with the verses, just talking the verses, which are spoken, they're not really sung. There's no actual melody for the verses. And this sort of little character started to develop, and I loved her." (Thanks to Gretchen Peters for speaking with us about this song. Read her full interview in the Songfacts interviews section. Her website is gretchenpeters.com.)

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