There’s a movie that came out a couple years ago called Greener Grass, and it came to mind when I was listening to this song. Greener Grass is a suburban satire about a nervous pushover of a housewife named Jill, who increasingly finds her picturesque life encroached upon by outside forces until she has nothing left. Now, there are plenty of suburban satires out there, some of them quite good, but it’s hard to find a new angle. To paraphrase Miranda Priestly, “conformity and ennui? In the suburbs? Groundbreaking.”
How Greener Grass differentiates itself is with its surrealism. In this unnamed suburban town, all the adults wear braces on their teeth, and putter about in golf carts instead of cars. Jill’s husband extols the virtues of drinking chlorine-free pool water. Her awkward son inexplicably transforms into a golden retriever. In time, things grow more grotesque: a teacher leads her class in a sing-along about her mass murderer mother, a baby shower features synchronized regurgitation, and haircuts drip blood on the salon floor.
On Sloppy Jane’s new song, “Madison,” singer-songwriter Haley Dahl similarly juxtaposes all-American wholesomeness with a strange, ugly truth. She uses traditional pop songcraft and lovely orchestration to emphasize the empty, lonely life of our song’s narrator, and the unusual recording process (in a cave!) lends a depth and a darkness to its sound. But, crucially, “Madison” is an empathetic song, not so much an American freak show as a tragicomedy that jazz-hands through the tears.
The lyrics don’t directly tell us much, but we can gather the story of “Madison” through bits and pieces. The narrator is a person who, for whatever reason, can no longer take care of herself. She relies upon her significant other, which has sapped their relationship of love and intimacy: “How come you only touch me when you brush my hair?/You don’t care, you just bathe me.” She spends her days watching television and corresponding with radio hosts. Through it all, she pines for “the life [she] was dreaming of having with Madison.” Madison may be an ex-lover, her current caretaker, or even a lost daughter, but what matters is that she’s gone and never coming back.
If that description makes the song sound like bleak misery porn, the truth is much stranger, not to mention more fun. The song is playfully theatrical, taking inspiration from traditional Tin Pan Alley pop as well as later songwriters who gave that sound their own sardonic twist (particularly Randy Newman.) There are points where you imagine Dahl on stage, doffing a top hat and doing a bit of soft shoe. Lyrical details, such as a “pet TV” and lines like “why would Tina Turner leave me?”, reinforce this wry absurdity.
It’s to Dahl’s credit as a songwriter that “Madison” never feels like a cruel joke, a bit of fun at the expense of pathetic ugly Americans. She includes specific details that highlight how our narrator has been stripped of her dignity and her power. She can’t shave herself or change her own underwear. She has to dictate letters. Copious amounts of baby wipes are on hand to clean her when she can’t get herself into a bathtub. And worst of all, she remembers when she was able to do all of that by herself.
Of course, there is nothing inherently tragic or undignified about having a disability: disabled people can and do live happy, fulfilling lives. The tragedy of “Madison” is not that our narrator is disabled, but that circumstances prevent her from getting the appropriate care, forcing her to rely upon a loveless relationship and baby wipes. There are many people like her in America, poor and without good insurance, and the canned “awww” of audience sympathy that plays before the song’s extended orchestral outro is all they’re likely to get. Just as Greener Grass sympathized with its put-upon protagonist through all the surrealism, “Madison” honors people like its narrator, who rely on human kindness in a time and place where it seems to be in very short supply.
