Lost & Found: And Now, Ladies and Gentlemen, Cat Power

Cat Power has always held an air of mystery about herself. Her music tends to be both very personal and intimate, yet dense and difficult to read. She doesn't seem to mind talking about herself in her songs, but you have to learn her language to understand what she's saying.

In the above video from a 1999 episode of the Canadian show 'The Wedge,' Chan Marshall, a.k.a. Cat Power, tries to describe what she attempts to do in her songs. She stumbles through much of it, saying, "You know what I mean?" a lot. But she still maintains her own sort of eloquence.

"Music may be just a language for communicating the ... exact idea of a feeling," Marshall says. "Like, when you try to talk about how you feel, you can't always get the right words. So, I guess music is like ... the veil gets lifted and you can try to ... the things you that you see, you feel. It's weird."

Marshall also tells the story of her song 'Cross Bones Style': She met two homeless, orphaned children in Africa whose parents had been murdered in front of them by militiamen. They told Marshall about their lives and experiences.

Marshall says that she intentionally wanted to make the video for the song lighthearted and fun to soften the story a bit. She seems apologetic for performing slow, sad songs, and hopes her shows didn't spoil the night out for people who came to see her perform. That seems unlikely to us.

And in case you've never seen it, or in case you have seen it and want to see it again, here's the video for 'Cross Bones Style.'

In the above interview, she also briefly mentions her pot-smoking parents. In the video below, she speaks at length about her upbringing, which seems to have involved a lot of drinking and seeing live bands at backyard keggers.