Stephanie Says: 5 Songs With Women's Names as the Title

This week's songs are from Vampire Weekend, Friko, Horsegirl, Beck, and

April, May, June—three months in a row that also work as women’s names. That’s about all the justification I need to throw a theme together.

Here are 5 songs with women’s names in the title.

“Sometimes I think that maybe it’s because we were in a Tibetan Buddhism class together that it made me want to write kind of a mystical country song.” - Ezra Koenig

Vampire Weekend - “Hannah Hunt”

I have limited patience for Vampire Weekend, most of which I attribute to some of it to Ezra Koenig’s voice and the impersonal nature of the lyrics. I feel like I’m eavesdropping on someone sharing gossip about shallow people he only sort of knows, and certainly doesn’t care about. I can’t say for certain as I haven’t given it much thought. But then they have a handful of songs that just land. This is one, and every bit of that has to do with it’s structure—emerging from soft bouncing drifts before spilling over like a lush talking too loud at a party, repeating themselves. But actually, now that I think of it, I like this song because it sounds like a song The Walkmen left off of Lisbon.

“I am completely drawn to writing without any thought. Most of the time now when I sit down to write, I’ll start the pen before a single thought enters my mind and just let it go. Most of it ends up being disjointed ramblings and rants, but the ten percent that somehow makes sense always ends up being the best things I could write.” - Niko Kapetan

Friko - “Alice”

Chicago’s own Friko put out a new album a week or two ago and this is a standout track (see also: “Choo Choo”). According to Kapetan, they started writing about a friend named Alice that led to incorporating references to Alice in Wonderland. I’m not so much concerned with the lyrics on this one as the gradual folding of layers over the course of the song that builds to a wonderful release. It’s attention grabbing in a way that makes you want to start the song over again to trace back the path it carves. On the hype-to-hack cycle, mid-Aughts Indie Rock is probably in the “hack” bin (everything needs a time out now and again). But Friko’s warbly and wired vocals, guitars, and stop-start drums would fit right into any mixtape I made between 2003 and 2015 or so. RIP CD burners.

“Adding synth on ‘Julie’ is something that we would’ve probably been afraid of if there wasn’t somebody we really respect and look up to saying, ‘No, this is the coolest choice you guys could make. And it sounds great.’” - Gigi Reece

Horsegirl - “Julie”

Wilco played a “three nights; no repeats” homestand in 2023. I bought tickets to the first night, but ended up going to all three. Horsegirl, barely out of high school at the time, opened all three nights and won me over. Their music is full of discordant guitars, alternative tunings, and deceptively complex vocal melodies and song structures that draw comparisons to Sonic Youth and the Breeders. But there’s a soft roundedness to their sound where—Sonic Youth especially—feels like sharp angles. Working with Cate Le Bon as a producer for their second album Phonetic On and On, “Julie” pulses and hums with a minimalism interrupted with needling guitars in a way that sounds like it was constructed by removing everything but the vocals and the overdubs.

“There’s this combination of romance and unapologetic sexuality that doesn’t exist in rock music at all. It’s a seduction, but it’s also very matter-of-fact.” - Beck

Beck - “Debra”

I remember in high school, when I was running my mouth about how great Beck’s Mutations was, one of the more oddball friends I hung out with insisted Midnight Vultures was a masterpiece. To celebrate it as a fun riff on Prince-style sec jams under sells it. Few songs make me laugh out loud as consistently as “Debra.”

“What is not spoken must also be felt” - Ahmed Malek

Ahmed Malek - “Maya”

I have a soft spot for music that I stumble upon by chance out in the world, not online. I try to keep my ears and eyes open to things outside the algorithms. A reliable source lately is the crate of records a record store has for sale at a neighborhood coffee shop. I scope out the covers and names on jazz and Afrobeat records that are shockingly overpriced, but I assume sought after by connoisseurs, and find them on Apple Music or YouTube to have something fresh to listen to. It doesn’t always pan out, but there are gems to be found, like Ahmed Malek. Berlin-based label Habibi Funk re-issued a collection of songs the Algerian composer made for movies. Check out the lively funk of “Autopsie D’un Complot” as a bonus, and then come back for the jazzy groove of “Maya.” Malek is like Ennio Morricone and Fela Kuti rolled into one person.

Thanks for reading. Enjoy listening.