Here is another refugee post from the "official" Liz Phair Forum. I'll be re-posting lots of these in the coming weeks. I tend to distrust html-based editors, and therefore kept text copies of most everything, just in case the foreskin--er--
forum Gods ever decided it' was time for a quickie, and
FUUUUUCKED my transaction. And those sunspots -- they're a bitch too.
[quote name='JeremyEngle' post='73820' date='Sep 10 2006, 10:11 PM']
I love it, too, but I've never really understood the "squirrel" thing. Would you explain it, please?
It's a timeless question, the pursuit of which is far
far more important than my real job. So instead of doing anything that could possibly be misconstrued as constructive with my Monday morning, I'll take an hour (maybe a day) to contemplate the depths of her vile psyche and what led it to foist "as God is my squirrel" on a civilization unprepared for such moral subtleties.
Lord knows Google doesn't say shit about it (which itself says something) namely that -- like "yellow brick payroll" -- this phrase is a true Phair original, and one that remains curiously unconnected to anything before or since.
Now (to be serious for a few seconds, prior to spinning my idiotic theory) I must admit that I've spent a good deal of time in search of references to this squirly lyric. Specifically, I scoured the novel
Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, which, set in South Dakota, being vaguely feminist, and (most importantly) being a monument to the power of hallucinatory drugs, seemed a likely source of Phair's inspiration. I figured one of the slimy male characters would yodel "as god is my squirrel" at some point, and the mystery would be solved.
Unfortunately not.
*** However, even though the mysteries of
South Dakota did not reveal themselves in the hilarious pages of
Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, the novel DOES contain an interesting passage that mentions
Bridgit Bardot and
unearthly glows in sufficiently close proximity to qualify as a tangential Stratford-On-Guy reference. But that is another day's non-sequitor, and so I'll get back to the weighty topic at hand ***
This "as god is my squirrel thing" has haunted me ever since Juvenilia (as another aside, has anyone else noticed the inconsistent spelling of
Juvenelia on the EP?) Anyhow... like I was saying... this "as god is my squirrel" reference is one of the great mysteries of our age, ranking right up there with "how does gravity work?" or "why didn't
Whip Smart go to number one?" Similarly, who (besides me) hasn't gazed up at the stars and wondered -- "what the FUCK?
As God is my SQUIRREL? What does it all mean?
FUUUUUCK!!!"
Further meditation on the subject led me to dimensionalize the question across several sub-categories, each with its own startling set of implications:
1. Squirrel ownership
2. God as Rat (the little fuckers are members of the rat taxonomy, or genus, or whatever)
3. The family of famous quotations that begin with: "as God is my..."
My inconclusions:
1. As much as I'd like to think so, the lyric is not a statement regarding squirrel ownership. Nobody can own a squirrel, not really. Their spirit would always be free. Besides, who the fuck would want to? Sure, squirrels are cute as fuck, but let's face it... they're
rats.
2. Neither do I consider the lyric a religious statement. Sure, God would make a fine squirrel. But think about it... what kind of squirrel could fuck up a universe this badly? Squirrels are smart.
3. Here's the better angle -- famous quotations. When Scarlet O'Hara gives Fate the finger in
Gone With the Wind, and says: "As God is my witness... I'll never go hungry again..." -- it represents one of the great moments in feminist art. Scarlet doesn't need any man, not any more. She's got her self. She's ready to conquer. She's got her wit, her body, and she'll use them to take full advantage of every man she meets, and get what she wants. And, yes, she does get away with murder.
Now, however convincing as that might sound to fans familiar with Phair's lyrics in general, it doesn't specifically explain her "as God is my squirrel" utterance. But it
does position Ms. O'Hara as a weighty counterpoint to Mr. Razorback, whose talk of cow-fucking, getting loaded, and creepy rapist flirtations are grounded by a philosophy oddly similar to hers -- one where God is a bystander, and, in fact (in his version) doesn't exist in any sentient way, resulting in a wide open world, where the only thing that limits one is oneself.
More simply put, "as God is my squirrel" is a redneck koan, a morsel of goat-roping wisdom that our songstress gleaned from her extensive study of the "prairie man" in his natural habitat -- the honky tonk. He's smarter than the cityfucks, in league with the lumberchucks, and generally kicks ass. What's really disturbing is that he's also an accidental Zen Buddhist (then again, are there any other kind?)
And if
that's not a weird enough answer, there is always the Norse interpretation, where the lyric can be taken as: "Asgard is my squirrel"
Right.
The real answer? I suppose the real answer is this: squirrel rhymes with world, and it sounds funny.
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