When I saw the prompt for this week, no song immediately came to mind, so I went to lyrics.com and plugged in the words. I did see a good Kinks song to use, and I hope someone chooses it. This one, though, is from an album I’ve listened to many times and so thought it would be a good one to take a closer look at. You know how some songs you are pulled to the lyrics and others to the music itself? This is one of the latter for me, so it will be good to see if I can decipher the meaning of lyrics I never really listened to until now.

Stone Temple Pilots, commonly abbreviated as STP, are an American rock band formed in San Diego, California, in 1989. Originally consisting of lead vocalist Scott Weiland, drummer Eric Kretz, and brothers Dean (guitar) and Robert DeLeo (bass,) the band’s lineup remained unchanged from its formation until the firing of Weiland in February 2013. Linkin Park vocalist Chester Bennington joined the band in May 2013 but left amicably in November 2015. Weiland died December 2015, while Bennington died two years later. In 2016, the band launched an online audition for a new lead vocalist; Jeff Gutt was ultimately announced as their new lead singer on November 14, 2017.

After forming under the name Swing (later Mighty Joe Young), the band signed with Atlantic Records and changed its name to Stone Temple Pilots. Their debut album, Core, released in 1992, was a major commercial hit and proved instrumental in the popularization of grunge in the early 1990s. STP released four more studio albums – Purple (1994,) Tiny Music… Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop (1996,) No. 4 (1999,) and Shangri-La Dee Da (2001) – before separating acrimoniously in 2003.

While initially rising to fame as part of the grunge movement of the early 1990s, further releases from the band have explored a variety of styles, including psychedelic rock, bossa nova, and country. Stone Temple Pilots are regarded as one of the most successful rock bands of the 1990s, having sold more than 18 million albums in the United States and 40 million worldwide that decade.

Tiny Music… Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop is their 3rd studio album, released in 1996. “Lady Picture Show” is the 3rd single released from it, after “Big Bang Baby” and “Trippin’ on a Hole in a Paper Heart.”

The album was recorded at Westerly Ranch in Santa Ynez, California, where they also lived at the time. Like all of the band’s albums up to that point, production was handled by Brendan O’Brien. There is a wealth of information at wikipedia on how the location of recording in a house affected the production and the states of mind of the band during the time.

The wide range of how reviewers regard the album is quite out of the ordinary. Even the publications that had glowing words about it did not rate it well. I was disappointed in how vicious some of their reviews were. It’s one of the reasons I learn which reviewers have good taste in music and which ones are hacks just earning a paycheck. I did want to share what Billy Corgan had to say about it:

It was STP’s 3rd album that had got me hooked, a wizardly mix of glam and post-punk, and I confessed to Scott, as well as the band many times, how wrong I’d been in assessing their native brilliance. And like Bowie can and does, it was Scott’s phrasing that pushed his music into a unique, and hard to pin down, aesthetic sonicsphere.

Lady Picture Show

Lady picture show
She hides behind the bedroom door
Lady picture show
She hides behind the bedroom wall

She hides because she don't know nothin'
Don't know nothin' anymore
She keeps a funny face, it's locked
And bagged, it's just outside the door

She doesn't know her name
She doesn't know her face
She doesn't know her name
She doesn't know her face

Lady picture girl
I think them boys don't like your show
Lady picture show them
Boys are gone, should just say no

Your wedding present's
Not so daisy picture perfect anymore
Lady funny face, it's locked and bagged
It's just outside the door

She doesn't know her name
She doesn't know her face
She doesn't know her name
She doesn't know her face

Let them believe
Let them believe
Let them believe

She doesn't know her name
She doesn't know her face

Lady picture show
She hides behind the bedroom door
Lady picture show
She hides behind the bedroom wall

She hides because she don't know nothin'
Don't know nothin' anymore
She keeps a funny face
It's locked and bagged, it's just outside the door

She doesn't know her name
She doesn't know her face
She doesn't know her name
She doesn't know her face

Let them believe
Let them believe
Let them believe

Written by: Eric Kretz, Dean Deleo, Scott Weiland, Robert Deleo
Album: Tiny Music... Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop
Released: 1996

Impressions:
After reading the lyrics and watching the video, it feels like “hiding behind the bedroom door/wall” and how she doesn’t know her name/face, means she’s been brainwashed to believe she is an object that is to be used by others but has no intrinsic worth beyond it. It feels like her sense of worth is based upon the approval/disapproval of the male gaze. Lady Picture Show is the act she puts on, but also the act she believes in. She’s convinced herself that they are right. It makes me wonder if Scott saw himself in this tragic figure. Perhaps for him it was the drugs telling him what he came to believe about himself?

Jim Adams is the host of Song Lyric Sunday. This week Jim wants us to find a song that references image, picture, scan or view.