Cat Power has put out a video for ‘Manhattan’ off her album ‘Sun’ released last year, and the guest star is of course the island of Manhattan, as we follow the singer dancing in the streets, singing in the subway, floating on a bridge, shopping in a vinyl store…
She literally owns the city, as she teases us with ‘Don’t look at the moon tonight/You’ll never be never be never be Manhattan’… there’s a little bit of fuck you in this song, as I tend to believe these lines are specifically addressed to someone in her past. It’s her love declaration to Manhattan, the city which makes her strong, and nothing or nobody can top this.
Actually, Chan told this to Interview Magazine about the song: ‘Oh, well, there’s this beautiful Langston Hughes poem about the Statue of Liberty—or that mentions the Statue of Liberty. I’d had this song in my head for a long time. It’s basically my homage to him, and to this weird idea of what liberty actually is. I kept thinking about the man in Manhattan, and the history of that word. People need to be reminded sometimes about what real liberty means—the idea that you can do whatever the fuck you want. And so much of the time people think they’re doing that, but really they’re just chasing money, not freedom.’
She is right, freedom is the most precious thing anyone can have, people never value it enough…. But Chan Marshall is free, more than ever in this video.