Not a Pretty Girl (reprise)

This month I got to see Ani DiFranco perform in Hadestown on Broadway, and if you're in New York or will be soon, I highly recommend seeing it. Before the lights dimmed, I told my boyfriend I will probably cry when Ani gets on stage. Twenty minutes later, reader, I cried.

With that in mind, I thought I'd reprint a piece I wrote over ten years ago. It was published in May 2013 on a music blog that no longer exists and has been (seemingly) erased from the internet. It's about discovering Ani DiFranco at an age I needed her most. Other than some edits for length, it is in its original form. Thanks for reading.

Not a Pretty Girl

Fourteen was the age I found my voice. 

I had subscriptions to two magazines (ones addressed to me, not to my parents): Seventeen and Rolling Stone. Seventeen was where I got makeup and fashion tips I never used, but still liked reading about. Rolling Stone was my window into a world that was definitely not mine. Rolling Stone was rock music and politics and stories about AIDS and war and musicians who behaved badly. It was the magazine that made me consider “writer” as a possible job title, specifically “Contributing Editor to Rolling Stone.” 

I read all magazines from back to front, and Rolling Stone was no different. Only, I would have flipped to the back first even if I did read magazines the correct way. The back page was where they listed the Top 40 on the Billboard charts, and my eyes always skipped down to a tiny inset where they’d list the Top 10 songs played on college campuses. I prided myself in liking bands played on the local college radio station. The stuff I didn’t think anyone else knew about. I felt older, “hip,” even though I, personally, didn’t know any college kids I could impress with my knowledge. I had no idea Ani DiFranco had been a huge force in the indie music scene for years before I ever saw her name in Rolling Stone. I was fourteen and not very cool and it was 1998. The music I loved defined Gen X, not whatever generation I was. 

Around this time, I realized I was having a harder time relating to some of my friends, and no longer cared about what they cared about. Little by little I started dressing differently from them too. Nothing drastic, nothing daring, but just subtle enough for me to notice. I was getting restless and didn't know it. 

I bought Not A Pretty Girl at the mall, and in 1998 that meant the person I was with when I bought it was my childhood best friend. We lived at the mall every Friday night. We rarely bought anything, and we weren’t popular enough to be “seen.” We just needed those hours of parent-less freedom and feeling a thrill when we’d run into someone cute from our school. And even more of a thrill when they knew our names. 

I saw Little Plastic Castle, the album I had read about in Rolling Stone, but I decided to buy Not a Pretty Girl first. That was the title that stuck out to me the most. I, myself, was not a pretty girl. My friend, however, was. She had been a self-proclaimed “tomboy” and we were often asked if we were twins. Then, one day, she came back to school without braces and the deep brown eyes she previously kept behind wire-rimmed glasses were large, mascara’d, and bright. I still had braces and didn’t wear any makeup other than lip-gloss even though I was allowed to. 

Fourteen was the age my best friend became hot and I stayed me.

It didn't matter that it never affected our friendship, or that boys still asked me out. It also didn’t matter that I usually said no. It wasn't until a friend, a boy, pointed out our differences that I even realized she and I no longer looked alike. On a Friday mall trip, I walked with my usual companion and another friend. They were matching in black bootcut leggings and V-neck tees; I was in khaki cargo pants and an oversized t-shirt layered over a long-sleeved thermal. We ran into the boy who was more my friend than theirs, and he pulled me aside to ask, out of concern, whether I felt embarrassed to walk around with them. I told him of course not and why would he ask such a thing. He looked me up and down, and frowned.

I knew I wasn’t ugly, but it was becoming obvious I wasn't "a pretty girl" either. No one ever told me I wasn’t pretty. It was just something I felt, something I knew. Pretty was for tall, athletic girls. Pretty was for popular girls. Pretty was shiny hair and make-up and tight sweaters. Pretty was not the sarcastic quiet girl who thought too much.

The jacket cover for Not a Pretty Girl looked like graffiti. Messy with bleeding colors, abstract and beautiful. Like I did with all my CDs, I immediately unwrapped it and leafed through the booklet of lyrics and liner notes when I got home. From back to front, of course.

The first track on Not A Pretty Girl was a song called “Worthy.” The opening guitar riff was one of the sexiest things I had ever heard. With that first note, I knew I had discovered something much cooler than anything I'd listened to before. The song “Worthy” was supposed to empower me, I knew that, but it only brought out my own insecurities. Somehow ignoring the real lyrics and replacing them with my inner monologue made the song more meaningful. It forced my feelings of unworthiness in front of me, ready to be confronted. I did the same with track #4, "Shy," a word always associated with me that I never felt was accurate.

From "Worthy," the album moved to a melodic spoken word poem, flowing into aggressive guitars, quiet ballads, and continued to weave in and out of moods and commands that had me hanging on her every word.

One of her more popular songs is “32 Flavors,” track #10 on Not a Pretty Girl. It had a quieter, more accessible melody, and for a beginner like me, this was the perfect introduction to the force-of-nature that was Ani DiFranco. I wish I could say that her more experimental songs were the ones I gravitated to at the time, but as a very normal teenager who saw herself as an outsider, “32 Flavors” just fit. “I am a poster girl with no poster...”

When I listened to Not A Pretty Girl I stopped feeling misunderstood and frustrated with being a teenager. It felt at home with my other CDs, but Ani wasn’t the same kind of angry as Alanis or flirty like Gwen Stefani. She was both of those things, but wiser. She understood that we all feel invisible and unworthy and just out of reach sometimes. It doesn’t mean we are.

Listening to Ani DiFranco made me feel like I was getting away with something. I never smoked, did drugs, partied, or really even swore. Through music, I was a good kid listening to bad words, powerful words, necessary words. My actions were tame, but under the surface I was becoming someone strong and rebellious in her own right. 

Fourteen was the age I started to like myself again. 

Not A Pretty Girl didn’t change my life overnight, but it became embedded into my adolescence along with everything else I listened to, read, and experienced. The “pretty” Ani sang about had nothing to do with looks and everything to do with allowing yourself to be a person in this world without permission. It was what I needed to hear. "No, I want to be more than a pretty girl," she sang directly to me and I believed her.

FUN STUFF: 

What I'm Reading: A Fist or a Heart by Kristin Eiriksdottir

What I'm Watching: The Traitors (Peacock)

What I'm Listening To: What else?

What I'm Eating: Chicken soup

Sarah Writes Too is a free monthly newsletter featuring short personal essays by me (Sarah LaPolla). The best way to show support is to subscribe, share posts you liked, or leave me a tip. You can also find me on Bluesky at @sarahlapolla.Thanks for reading!