Every Saturday, we’ll be posting a new illustration by David Lester. The Mecca Normal guitarist is visually documenting people, places and events from his band’s 33-year run, with text by vocalist Jean Smith.
On a recent list of 33 feminist punk songs that crushed stereotypes and steered progress, 1987’s “Man Thinks Woman” was called a barbed dissection of gender normativity.
Man thinks woman
when he talks to me
something not quite right
I talk to men and the ground
turns to rolling sea
The world is a wave tossing back
whatever I throw in
At a house
at a party
in a hall and drunk
I talk to a man
and he wants me to bite his tongue
I bite his tongue and he wants to know
how I know where the pleasure pain lies
And I said I know like the women in Africa
who carry babies against their bare skin
they know
they can sense
they can feel
when their little baby has to pee
Man thinks woman
when he talks to me
something not quite right
I talk to men and the ground
turns to rolling sea
The world is a wave tossing back
whatever I throw in
Something not quite right
Man thinks woman
when he talks to me
something not quite right
The world is a wave tossing back
whatever I throw in
Man thinks woman
when he talks to me
something not quite right
something not quite right
there’s something wrong with me
“Man Thinks Woman” from Jarred Up (K, 1993) (download):