Naked Lunch

Album: DNA outtake (2000)
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Songfacts®:

  • "Naked Lunch" is an outtake from sessions for DNA, Lucid Nation's third studio album, released with Brain Floss Records. The song is named after the William Burroughs novel Naked Lunch, a landmark work in American literature and in the American counterculture. Reading Naked Lunch remains a mark of passage for American outsiders to this day.

    In her interview with Songfacts, Tamra Lucid explained:

    "'Naked Lunch' started as conversations about what we had gone through as riot grrrl faded. We went on to anarcho-punk, and then garage rock. I was disillusioned.

    At first, we were all on honeymoon when we arrived in riot grrrl, and we thought it was a utopian community, and a sea change. But we soon found that behind the facade all kinds of ugly things were going on: exploitation, exclusion, cruelty, elitist cliques.

    On the other hand, we also got incredible help, generous support and encouragement, and revelations about art, life and society. But sometimes the thing that gave you healing turns poisonous. That's part of the human condition.

    The title was a sardonic remark I made to Ronnie about all this, sort of abbreviated code for a sad tale of addicts and control freaks. I felt that people who had the desire to control riot grrrl for their own benefit tore it apart.

    Ronnie was an outsider witness to all this. Probably played more riot grrrl shows than any other male of the species. Often but not always made to sit out on the curb until our set. We would sit with him."

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