I was sitting here, editing pictures and listening to my LastFM. For those who don’t know, LastFM lets you input a singer/band or song and then plays similarly genre-ed music for you. I discover some great music this way. Currently, I have Nina Gordon as my input singer (don’t know her? you should!) and so I get some nice female rock this way. Liz Phair came on.

Now, the mainstream world doesn’t really know of Liz Phair before her 2003 hit, “Why Can’t I?” You may be surprised to know that she had quite a few albums before her self-titled one was released. Dating back to the early 90’s, Phair has been around the music world for “quite some time” when you think about it.

The song that came on was not one I had heard of and I wasn’t looking at the name of it when it changed songs. I just heard the first line. And I choked on my coffee. Ready for it? Here it goes.

My black market white baby dealer

Oh. Yeah. Heard that right. I immediately opened a Google window, found the lyrics to “Black Market White Baby Dealer” and read along as I listened, eyes bulging out of my head and ears shocked. The song was recorded by Liz herself on her first duo-tape (yes, tape) set in the early 90’s, Girlysound. It was the first track on Tape One.

Now, the quality is low, of course, being recorded in her parents’ basement. Add that into the fact that these lyrics will not be any internationally adopting parents favorite and the song may not sit well with large groups of people. But I dare you to read them in full. (Won’t copy/paste all due to copyright infringement.) But, even if you don’t want to read, here’s the chorus, which changes and gets progressively worse each time to finally include the word “expensive.” Honesty, no?

My black market white baby dealer
Is hunting around overseas
My black market white baby dealer
Brings back clean, fresh white babies to me

Other words for hunting include rooting and, yes, kidnapping. No, Phair sure isn’t making friends with the adoption world, now is she? She takes it further. Read on.

My smile is dime a dozen
My lips are cherry red
My eyes are blue like the sky is blue
I got good shoulders under my head
I look like your mother
I look like your great-aunt
So sit me down in the family photo
And everyone tells me that I, I look just like you

Ah, yes. And I started to wonder. These lyrics are the personal form of “I.” While singer-songwriters often take on stories that are not their own, this is an awfully big topic to take on without any prior knowledge of the adoption world. And so I asked myself, is Phair an adoptee?

Yes, yes she is.

This page has a Phair biography regarding her childhood and it discusses her adoption at various points. As opposed to the lyrics in her song, she was adopted domestically by a Doctor and his wife. She was the second child adopted into the family. Some of her quotes hit me hard. Read on, of course.

About five percent of my ambition is the idea that if I get visible enough my (biological) parents will come to me. And I won’t have to go find them. I thought that was a really good idea. Connecticut doesn’t release files. They might not want to be found, and if they did want to be found, what would that do to my sense of the possibilties in life? I’ve been given a free reign to create myself. I could be anything because, frankly, one doesn’t know what I’m destined for.

Wow. She puts up a tough front but the first sentence says it all: she does want to be found in some way or another. Isn’t that what all birth parents fear? That their relinquished child will balk at their arrival into their lives once again? And who thinks Phair could be a great spokesperson for opening records? Hmm?

She goes on:

It (being adopted) motivates my songwriting. It gives me that free space — I’ve got this mental idea that I’m not really, deep-down, fully attached to anything, like that floatable world that artists create for themselves. I’m a member of that world, intrinsically. I don’t have a biological mother to refute. Bad behavior in a child, you can frame it up against your parents — you know, ‘You’re just like your father.’ Since I don’t have that model, it frees me up to pursue what I want to perceive as myself.

I get her point. Sometimes I look at my (biological) family and think, “Well, I’m either going to turn out like this or like this.” Phair is stating that, because of her lack of knowledge about her nature, she’s free to nurture herself into whatever she wants to be. I bet that does feel freeing in a way. But I also know, still looking at my family, that I can be whatever I want to be as well. We all have that ability. We do. Some are just unwilling to take the steps to be what they want and fall into lazy patterns. Don’t deny it. Even I do it.

And there’s your daily history adoption lesson. I’m off to download the song and add it to my playlist(s).