Just One of the Guys

Album: The Voyager (2014)
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Songfacts®:

  • This catchy tune is Jenny Lewis' playful take on womanhood and the time bomb ticking of her biological clock:

    There's only one difference between you and me
    When I look a myself all I can see
    I'm just another lady without a baby


    Lewis recalled the origin of the lyric to Radio.com: "I just remember the moment where, I had just written it and [Gillian Welch and I] were playing the bridge, I think she was playing the drums, and we kind of looked at each other and she's like, 'Oh wow, you said it didn't you. You went there,'" Lewis recounted, laughing. "Yeah, I did."
  • The song features accompanying vocals by Beck, who also produced the track. The bubbly melody reflects its inception at Beck's home studio in Malibu. Lewis described the experience to NPR as "super laid-back - walking on the beach, talking about movies, the Rolling Stones, and French pop music. It was just very mellow and lovely."
  • Lewis performs the song in the music video accompanied by a girl group. The singer's bandmates are her famous friends Anne Hathaway, Kristen Stewart and Brie Larson all dressed up in drag. The former Rilo Kiley frontwoman also directed the clip. "The rat tail was all Annie," Lewis told GQ magazine. "Deep character exploration. Her dude is a bit more Backstreet Boy than the rest. Melancholy Backstreet Boy is what I think she was going for - he really feels things deeply and break dances like a motherf--ker."
  • At one stage Beck gave Lewis a much needed jolt. "I didn't have the last verse and Beck said, 'Go in the other room and write it,'" she recalled to Billboard magazine. "It was pretty cool to have Beck tell you to go finish something - because you know you will."

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