Lived In Bars

Chan Marshall aka Cat Power's mother left her when she was six months, only to return when she was three, having been brought up by her grandmother in the meantime. After divorcing the singer's father, Marshall's mom spent a lot of time in bars, dragging her two children along. Marshall recalled to Q magazine October 2012 the background to this autobiographical song: "My sister and I would go to this place called Aunt Charlie's every day, til about two in the morning, sitting on men's laps getting quarters and nickels while my mother played pool. Then we'd sit in the bushes because our eyes would hurt so bad from all the cigarette smoke… Then we'd throw those berries at guys we didn't like."

The song is from The Greatest, Marshall's seventh studio album. The record won the 2006 Shortlist Music Prize, an annual music award for the best album released in the United States that had sold fewer than 500,000 copies at the time of nomination. Marshall was the first woman to win the honor.