Now, I haven't always liked P!NK. Actually in the beginning, when she first came out in 2000, I didn't like her at all. I thought she was a little "ghetto" to me and I would actually turn the channel when her songs came on the radio. I know, that's horrible. But it wasn't until about a year or so ago that I really started getting into her, and I owe that to VH1's Behind the Music: P!NK episode that aired in late 2009. See, I didn't know that P!NK was a songwriter. I have an incredible respect for songwriters and artists who are NATURALLY talented. I didn't know it before, but P!NK is both, and she also has an incredible story.
Alecia Beth Moore was born in Doyleston, Pennsylvania on September 8, 1979. Her household wasn't a very "happy" household, what with her parents fighting all the time. When she was 8 years old, her father left. This devastated Moore, and she turned to music as solace. Her first solo performance was at age 9, as was the first time she started smoking cigarettes. Pot followed when she turned 11, at 12 she started acid and by age 13, she was using all the hard club drugs. She was on the road for danger. In fact, she was already there. She began throwing "K" parties at her moms house while she was working, and selling drugs on the side. Though the parties were bad, one party in particular helped Alecia achieve her dream of becoming an international pop star. A few guys overheard Moore singing in her bedroom and approached her with a request for her to be their lead singer for their garage band, Middleground. Moore accepted, and at the age of 13, she was a rockstar.
Over the next few years, Moore performed in clubs in downtown Philidelphia. Most of the clubs she performed in consisted of mostly black people and there were many times she would be the only white girl to be found. It was intimidating for her at first, but once she opened her mouth and everyone realized she could sing, she earned a lot of respect. Her bodyguard gave her the nickname, Pinky. And it stuck.
At age 15, she was discovered at one of the many clubs she performed at and was asked to join the up and coming band, Choice. The group went all over the U.S. performing for Big Whig record execs to cut a record deal. In one of the meetings with Big Whig, Tommy Matola, Moore showed her true bad a$$ colors. Matola wasn't paying attention to the girls at all and Moore wasn't too happy about it. So she stood up for her and her friends, saying "Can you at least act like you're paying attention and not look out the f***ing window while we're singing? Cause I didn't smoke today!" That didn't make them get any closer to a record deal of course, but it showed that Moore wasn't taking any BS from anyone.
After only 3 years with Choice, Moore proved to be way ahead of the other 2 girls in the group to the point where her manager gave her an ultimatum: go solo, or go home. This was one of the hardest decisions she would ever have to make, but it was also the best. One day, she was Alecia Beth Moore and the next, she was P!NK. She died her hair a fucshia color and cut it super short and never went back.
"I never liked 'Alecia' it never felt like me. Everyone called me 'Pinky' in Philly, that's who I was. I loved it, I didn't care cause my main cheesy point was 'We're all pink in the inside. We're all the same, people, it doesn't matter."
In the year 2000, P!NK's first album, Can't Take Me Home debuted and with her first paycheck, she bought back her father's gold rolex he sold years earlier to pay for child support as a gift to her dad. That says a lot about her character. She was also excited to be able to give back to her dad, and especially something that had meant so much to him.
After her first album, P!NK was asked to join Mya, Lil Kim, and Christina Aguilera in the movie soundtrack "Lady Marmalade". It was a great career move for P!NK but it came with a cost. At the meeting to decide which part would go to which diva, Aguilera's label exec, Ron Fehr showed up and without saying so much as a hello or introducing himself he asked what the highest and most "singing" part was, and told everyone at the meeting that that part would be going to Aguilera. P!NK wasn't having it. "Hi, how are you? So nice of you to introduce yourself. I'm P!NK. She will not be taking that part. I think that's what the f***ing meeting is about!" hahahaha! Do you see why I love her now? The song ended up landing P!NK her first grammy for "Best Pop Collaboration With Vocals".
Soon, it was time for P!NK to start on her next album. But she wanted to change things up a bit.
"I wasn't getting enough of "me" out and I thought that if I talked about enough "real" stuff, maybe one day I could be a songwriter. I wanted to do that...I made a conscious decision that I would never repeat myself and I wanted to go find Linda Perry."
Who is Linda Perry? Well, she was the lead singer for the one-hit-wonder band "4 Non Blondes" in 1992. You may recognize "And so I wake in the morning and I step outside and I take a deep breath and get real high and I scream from the top of my lungs, 'WHATS GOING ON?!" No? Ok, listen to the song.
It was not only a great opportunity for P!NK to fnd Perry but it was opportunity for Perry as well. To get back to doing what she loved after disappearing after one big hit 8 years before was a huge reward. They saved each other.
"Linda was the first person that sat me down, put a microphone in my hand, and just said "Here, tell me how you're feeling....Just tell me what's on your mind basically, in a melody." For your childhood idol to be sitting in front of you, making you feel understood for the first time in your life, I can't even explain how that feels."
Perry was P!NK's aid in channeling her troubled childhood and to start the healing process. "I literally went into the vocal booth, closed my eyes, 20 minutes later, I'm sobbing and "Family Portrait" was written."
"Family Portrait". A song that appears on P!NK's second album, Missundazstood, tells the story of P!NK's childhood, and her parents non-stop quarrelling.
"You fight about money, about me and my brother
And this I come home to, this is my shelter.
It ain't easy growin up in World War 3
Never knowin what love could be
You'll see, I don't want love to destroy me
Like it has done my family..."
Missundaztood almost never happened. P!NK's music exec, L.A. Reid didn't think it was a good idea for her to totally re-design her image. She had become someone what of an R&B icon, and that's not what P!NK wanted. So when Reid told her he was giving her the opportunity to fail, P!NK said 'Thank You' and proved him wrong. Missundaztood went platinum, selling 10 million copies the first week it came out.
"My favorite part was being able to say "I told you so" to L.A."
Soon after Missundaztood's success, P!NK met Cary Hart at a Motorcross race. A week later, they became a couple and were inseperable.
"I took it really personally when she started working with other artists, particularly artists that I didn't like. I don't think imitation is the highest form of flattery. I think it's annoying."
After asking Perry to help her with her next album, and getting rejected, P!NK shut down.
"I didn't wanna go deep. I didn't really have much to say."
"It was obvious that she just checked out and didn't really wanna put a whole lot of emotion into it." -Linda Perry
"I was over it. I didn't wanna talk about myself anymore. So I made a fun record with Tim Armstrong."
Try This came out in 2003. It wasn't a hit itself, but the song "Trouble" earned her her first Grammy as a solo artist for Female Rock Vocal. But though she was becoming more and more successful, she didn't feel complete without Hart by her side. So, at a motorcross race where P!NK was "pit boarding" she proposed to Carey by writing on the back of a board "Will You Marry Me". With Hart's "yes", P!NK was more inspired than ever to pour her heart into her next album, I'm Not Dead.
Try This gave me an emotional break.....[when the next album came along] I felt alive. That's why I named the [next] record, I'm Not Dead."
In that album, songs such as "U and Ur Hand", "Who Knew" and "Dear Mr. President" came. My favorite one is "Dear Mr. President".
"I could not believe that George W. Bush was our president. No one says anything because everyone wants to walk that line not to piss anybody off. SCREW THAT! I didn't grow up like that..."
Dear Mr. President Lyrics
Dear Mr. President, come take a walk with me
Let's pretend we're just two people and
You're not better than me
I'd like to ask you some questions
If we could speak honestly
What do you feel when you see all the homeless on the street?
Who do you pray for at night before you go to sleep?
What do you feel when you look in the mirror?
Are you proud?
How do you sleep while the rest of us cry?
How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye?
How do you walk with your head held high?
Can you even look me in the eye and tell me why?
Dear Mr. President, were you a lonely boy?
Are you a lonely boy?
How can you say "No child is left behind?"
We're not dumb and we're not blind
They're all sitting in your cells
While you pave the road to hell
What kind of father would take his own daughter's rights away?
And what kind of father might hate his own daughter if she were gay?
I can only imagine what the First Lady has to say:
You've come a long way from whiskey and cocaine.
Let me tell you about hard work:
Minimum wage with a baby on the way
Let me tell you about hard work:
Rebuilding your house after the bombs took them away
Let me tell you about hard work:
Building a bed out of a cardboard box
Let me tell you about hard work, hard work, hard work
You don't know nothin bout hard work, hard work, hard work
How do you sleep at night?
How do you walk with your head held high?
Dear Mr. President,
You'd never take a walk with me
Would you?
Absolutely love that song and I'm not really sure why. It's beautiful first of all, but I'm not political at all. I think I just love that it's so factual. I call it the "Forrest Gump-ish" song. You know, everything in that movie was based on fact but it was told in a creative way?
Soon after I'm Not Dead went platinum, she married Hart. But immediately after the wedding, P!NK went on the "I'm Not Dead" 2 year international tour. Their marriage soon began to fall apart because of the separation, once again. Of course it did. You're married for 3 weeks and then you don't see each other for 2 months? That's just insane. So, when P!NK came home, she tried to make things better by taking a vacation with some of their friends. On that vacation, P!NK came up with the song "Mean". It came out naturally to her, and it was written and performed in front of everyone. That song didn't go over well with Hart and they announced their split on Valentines Day. For P!NK, the separation reminded her too much of her parents divorce. It was then that she began working on Funhouse.
"P!NK once again turned to her music to help heal her pain and began the most cathartic writing experience of her career."- Behind the Music
"From heartbreak comes inspiration. There was nothing on that lyrically that wasn't heartfelt." Butch, the dude that helped her write for Funhouse.
"I wanted to name the record "Heartbreak is a Mother F***er [laughs] cause it is [laughs]." -P!NK
The label wanted to release "So What" as the first single to the album, but P!NK was worried that because the song was written about Hart, it would probably hurt him if he heard it without knowing about it. So she agreed to release it, only if Hart could appear in the music video. That was genius because it led the couple to get back together and "So What" turned out to be her first solo number one hit on the charts.
I only wish I had gotten to know P!NK sooner. She is quite a remarkable woman. I love her to death. Her latest 2 songs, "Raise Your Glass" and "F***in Perfect" have become my "favorite songs of the moment". Her writing is amazing. I always said that one of my rules for music was that the song had to have some sort of meaning behind it. Most of P!NK's music has a ton of meaning behind it. Whether it's a humorous, upbeat song, or a heartfelt ballad, it's all beautiful. I admire her greatly because of her talent and because of the fact that she's so carefree. She doesn't give a rats @$$ what people think of her. She is genuine and REAL, outspoken and intelligent. But behind all the hard-core-ness, she is GENTLE and KIND. Not only that but she is GORGEOUS. I really hope to meet her one of these days.
On her marriage to Hart: "I see a lifetime prescription to Xanax, many broken bones, and a really safe warm yummy place." See? I just love that.
I love it =)
"It's been a ferocious search, me being comfortable in my own skin. I have owned and embraced my integrity and I feel like I still have a lot of fight left in me. I can't explain it without sounding delusional...I signed up for this life before I got here, I chose it. I chose all the obstacles as well. I chose all the challenges, I chose all the pain of my childhood, which would eventually bring me to be able to write the kinds of songs and feel the kinds of emotions and not be afraid of the pain to do what I do."
Well said, baby, well said.
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