Man From The Magazine

"Man From The Magazine" is an infuriated ballad about music industry misogyny. The first verse chronicles a specific encounter between Este Haim and a sexist male journalist who asked her whether she "makes the same faces in bed" as she does on stage when playing bass. "I see men making faces on stage," Este told The Independent, "and it's a reaction from feeling the music. I made the mistake early on of looking at comments on live performances, which I don't do anymore, and all these comments, mostly men, were like, 'Urgh, ugly, grotesque, get her off the f---ing stage, why is she making those faces?' I think some men have a problem with seeing a woman enjoying herself. That's threatening to them."

The journalist asked the question quite early in Haim's career. It was still a novelty for some people to see a female rock musician like Este make faces to express herself when she played, even though men have been doing it for years. She told Apple Music at the time her defense mechanism when she heard a sexist comment was make a joke out of it, so Este threw it back at him and said, "Well, there's only one way to find out." There was a chuckle and then they moved on. "Now, had someone said that to me, I probably would've punched them in the face," she added. "But as women, we're taught kind of just to always be pleasant and be polite. And I think that was my way of being polite and nice."

The second verse details the hassles and preconceptions women face going into guitar or music shops and being met with the question, "Oh, do you want to start to play guitar?" or "Are you looking for a guitar for your boyfriend?" Danielle Haim told Apple Music she's talked to many other female musicians about the same experience. They agree they all get the same sexist response and hate going in the guitar stores.