Does She Want You With The Pain That I Do? - Meshell Ndegeocello's Bitter at 25

The first time I really gave consideration to reflect on who I was, or where I was, during a specific time in my existence, was exactly 20 years ago, when someone I was infatuated with at the time gave me, as a birthday gift, if I’m remembering correctly, a copy of Radio On, by Sarah Vowell.

The book, subtitled “A Listener’s Diary,” details Vowell’s experience with listening to the radio, every day, for an entire calendar year—1995. 

I was all of 12 years old in 1995—and, nearly a decade later, in being given a copy of the book, and in reading it almost immediately upon receipt, because, again, I was infatuated with the person who gave it to me—reading it in the sweltering heat and humidity of a midwestern summer, in the stretch between my junior and senior years of college, it was the first time I gave consideration to my existence—like, what I was doing, or experiencing, at the same time that Vowell, a number of years older than myself, was beginning her experiment with documenting what she heard over the airwaves, and how she felt about it.

In the summer of 1999, I turned 16—the day after my birthday (which unfortunately falls on a holiday), I went to the DMV in Freeport, Illinois, managed to pass my driver’s test, and was the recipient of a license. Somewhere, in my mother’s home, just outside of Freeport, there is a photograph of me—fresh-faced, a full head of hair styled by gel and hairspray, a chain dangling against my right leg, connecting the wallet in my back pocket to a belt loop on the long, baggy, cargo shorts I was wearing. 

I am confident that, in this photo, where I am hunching up my shoulders, attempting to smile, and awkwardly holding my license, I am wearing a Mighty Might Bosstones t-shirt under a blue, plaid button down with short sleeves.

In the summer of 1999, I turned 16, and I will be the first to admit that while yes, I did regularly listen to bands like Radiohead and Failure, my tastes had a long way to go in terms of refinement, maturation, and ultimately, appreciation. I was, after all, photographed wearing a Mighty Mighty Bosstones t-shirt. I often describe myself as having been a shitty teenage boy, and I listened to a lot of aggressive hard rock—the kind that was very popular at the time with my demographic.

On August 24th, 1999, a Tuesday, shortly before my junior year in high school was to begin, I drove myself, in the cumbersome, white Pontiac mini-van that I had assumed drivership of shortly after my birthday, to the local K-Mart, and I purchased a copy of Title of Record, the second album from the hard rock outfit, Filter—the album that featured the successful single “Take A Picture.”

Another album released on August 24th, 1999, that I have no memory of seeing at K-Mart, but perhaps I was simply just not looking, or would have probably not been taken very much, if at all, with the stark, haunting cover art, is Bitter, by Meshell Ndegeocello. 

I tell you all of that to tell you this—often, when I am discovering an album many years after its initial release, I think about who I was, and where I was, at the moment the album in question arrived into this world. 

I think about the sullen, overweight teenager I once was. How I dressed. The music I listened to. How I wished to be perceived. How I perceived myself. Certainly, because she had moments in the zeitgeist around five and six years prior, I was aware, by name, of Ndegeocello—but a soulful, slow-burning, sensual, and complicated album like Bitter would have been lost on the 16-year-old version of me if I even had a mind to sit down and give a listen.

I think, often, about music, and how it finds us, and when it finds us—if it is something that we have had to try to not “make ourselves” like it, or appreciate it, but if we have to put forth an effort to understand, or find a point of access. Sometimes, it takes multiple attempts, years and years apart, before something makes sense to us. I often say that in those moments, we are finally “ready” for it, because in the past, during previous efforts, we simply were not.

I would, certainly, have not been ready for Bitter at the age of 16. But. Music finds us in moments when we are ready. 

And, as I approached turning 40, through some small coincidences, or moments that could be considered serendipitous, I was ready. And I was going to say that I found my way to Bitter but the truth is that Bitter found its way to me.

*

Now, tell me again about the distance between competition and romance, between rage and necessity.

Tell me the exact point where the distance collapses and everything blurs, for a moment, before something new comes into focus. 

And this is such a small thing—and, I mean, in this context, it really works, or is well executed. But something that I notice, and notice often, when watching a movie, or a television series, that is set within a specific time period, is the music that is used and if it, more or less, and certainly there are small concessions one can make, remains true to the period, or if it breaks. And, if it does break, not so much why, but is it done as a means of benefiting the scene?

And it might do it elsewhere, but there are two specific instances in the romantic drama Love and Basketball, where this occurs—the film, set during the 1980s and into the early 1990s, to my knowledge, stays relatively faithful to using songs from these eras, when applicable. The first instance, where it does stray from the time period, musically, and potentially the most infamous within the film, is a delicate, if not a little awkward, sex scene between the two protagonists, set to Maxwell’s cover of the Kate Bush song, “This Woman’s Work.”

And, I mean, if we are getting into idiosyncratic specifics here, Kate Bush’s version had not even been released yet at the time this scene in the film is alleged to be taking place; Maxwell did not even record the song in a studio until its inclusion on Now, from 2001—the version used in Love and Basketball is a live recording, pulled from his 1997 performance on “MTV Unplugged.”

But. The period breaking is done as a means of benefiting the scene, with something as tender, and pensive, as what we are watching on screen.

I tell you all of that to tell you this. 

The other moment, in Love and Basketball, when this break between the soundtrack, and accuracy to the time period, occurs within the final scene, or at least like the climatic moment when the protagonists, Quincy, played by Omar Epps, and Monica, Sanaa Lathan, play a game of one-on-one basketball, in a driveway. 

Without steering us, reader, further away from where I am, right now, attempting to guide us, I will not get into the specifics of the plot, or the central tensions in Love and Basketball, except to say that at one time friends, at one time rivals, of sorts, at one time lovers, and now figuring out what they mean to one another in the early years of adulthood, the stakes, during this middle of the night game of basketball, are high.

They are playing for affection. And they are playing with affection, in a sense.

The scene is set to the gentle, melancholic, hushed, and swooning second track from Meshell Ndegeocello’s Bitter—“Fool of Me.”

Tell me again about the distance between competition and romance.

Between rage and necessity.

*

I will confess that up until I happened to find myself, roughly a year ago, immersed in the world created by Ndegeocello’s Bitter, and circling the coincidences that brought it to me, I have, like, four reference points for her, as an artist. 

I will be showing my age, in a sense, with the first two, and the first, specifically, being the most embarrassing to me, but it is, unfortunately, the way that, in my much, much younger and very formative years, I did wind up hearing about a lot of music—the video for her confrontational, hip-hop leaning single, “If That’s Your Boyfriend, He Wasn’t Last Night,” was among the clips featured in segues on the MTV animated series, “Beavis and Butt-Head.” 

I don’t remember what the commentary on the video, or the song, was, when it was featured briefly on “Beavis and Butt-Head,” but the title of the song, and Ndegeocello’s name, stuck with me, even at the age of, like, 10 or 11. 

The second would have been her guest appearance, contributing a thick, rolling bass line (it is her primary instrument, after all) and vocals—her husky, soulful voice is unmistakable on John Mellencamp’s 1994 cover of the Van Morrison song, “Wild Night.” 

It would have been years later when, in college, I was reminded of Ndegeocello, when a friend bought a copy of her disorienting, sociologically charged album, Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape—an album that, for as accessible as it is, at times, it is also aggressive in a number of ways, or at least intentionally discomforting in what it discusses and how it unpacks it, so it was a record that, certainly falls into the category of something that I was, at like the age of 19 or 20, certainly “not ready for.”

The fourth, and final time, before sitting down with Bitter, that I had given a lot of consideration to Ndegeocello, was a few years ago, when she released an album of covers—an album that, based on its inclusion of a cover of Prince’s “Sometimes It Snows In April,” I did feel compelled to listen to and write an analysis of—though I will admit that, in 2018, I was certainly not sitting down and really giving as much time and consideration to an album, in writing about it, the way I do now, and have done, for the last three or four years.

And so, if I may, break the fourth wall, as I often do, and address you directly, reader, what I will say is that Bitter is, by no means, my introduction to Ndegeocello, but hers is a career that I do not have as many points of reference, canonically, as I may with other artists. And perhaps, because of that, I will confess that maybe, like I often wonder, when I do sit down and put my fingers to the keyboard, if I am the right person, or the right music analyst to be reflecting on the album, or the artist, in question. 

Bitter, certainly, given the stage of my life, and of what I gravitated towards musically, when it was released, is not an album that I have a long history with. It is not something that I have taken with me through time, or not something that, upon its release, held me for a moment before, like so many albums, or artists from the past, it reveals itself to be the kind of thing that does not, in fact, grow alongside you, only something you can return to occasionally with the wistful shadow of nostalgia looming over you. 

Bitter, removed from the coincidences that brought it to me, is a fascinating and complex album—it is still soulful, yes, and you can hear a penchant for a relaxed kind of R&B, or “Neo-Soul,” sound in the arrangement of a handful of its dozen songs. It’s a fascinating and complex album—there is something inherently gentle, or hushed, about so much of it, with Ndegeocellowriting and reflecting from someplace deeply inward and pensive. 

Inherently a “break-up album,” Bitter is a collection of songs loosely tied together by the idea of love—they are not love songs. Well. Maybe a few of them are. More than anything, these are songs about love. Because. You see. There is a difference. There are, of course, the places where those two things overlap, but there are the places where they are on opposing ends, and Bitter occurs, primarily, in the space where a relationship has ended, and sure, there might still be a feeling of love, but there are also feelings of resentment and sadness. Of regret and loss. And of lust.

It is an album that, in the end, even if it is ultimately not deserving of forgiveness, or of a reconciliation, does ask—pleads, really, for one, regardless.

*

Across its dozen tracks, one of which is a Jimi Hendrix cover that arrives after the halfway point, and two of which are brief instrumental pieces placed at nearly opposite ends of its run, it is an album that, in the time I have given it over the last year, I have come to understand that even in how hushed and reserved it is overall, in its arranging, and the instrumentation Ndegeocello has favored for it—there are times where it is surprising in how sparse and spectral it can end up being—there is a lot going on, often within the depths of its production. 

And within that sparse or spectral nature, there is a kind of quiet that fills so many of these songs—the silence that hangs in between the notes that are used like an additional instrument within the fabric of the song.

It is a meticulous album—and I hesitate to say that the meticulous or very deliberate nature with which Bitter was recorded is not imperative to its enjoyment. It is, as a whole, a fine collection of songs (admittedly a little slow moving sometimes) that oscillate, sonically, between a kind of relaxed or smoother R&B sound and something more jazz-leaning—all of it very acoustic or organic in how it unfolds. 

But this meticulous nature—the small details that you do, inevitably, pick up on, the longer you listen, or the more time you spend with it, do become kind of central to your experience with the album. 

There is a lore that surrounds the time surrounding Ndegeocello’s writing and recording, and the release of Bitter—though it is not as well documented, or perhaps just not as expansive, as the lore, or mythology that accompanies other albums that, over time, developed a cult following of an audience. 

Ndegoello found success with her debut, Plantation Lullabies, but was uninterested in recording a follow-up that sounded similar or housed another marketable single like “If That’s Your Boyfriend.” Her sophomore album, Peace Beyond Passion, featured a song, which was surprisingly released as a single, about a gay teenager who is beaten to death after getting thrown out of his parent’s home—its video was apparently banned from airing on BET. 

Peace Beyond Passion, released in 1996, was perplexing to radio and music television, as well as her record label—Maverick, a subsidiary of Warner Brothers founded by Madonna, in the early 90s. Frustrated, Ndegeocello alleged she had “said all she could say” in her songs after attempting to promote Peace, and wished to only make instrumental music going forward.

In a “Sunday Review” about Bitter, published on Pitchfork last June, writer Ivy Nelson aptly describes the album as being made from a place of abandonment—creative abandonment though, rather than romantic, even though a bulk of its material is about the difficulties navigating the end of a relationship. 

Forgoing working a third time with David Gamson, who produced her first two albums, Ndegeocello worked with Craig Street on Bitter, in an effort, and I am again, referencing the “Sunday Review” piece about the album, to foster a sense of naturalism.

“Songs that were less composed and more played,” writes Nelson about the album’s sound. “A room full of musicians responding to each other’s faintest gesture.”

That naturalism is something you can, of course, hear in the more organic and acoustic textures that Street and Ndegeocello opted for, certainly, but you can also hear it—those subtle gestures between musicians, in a moment, in the meticulous and deliberate details that reveal themselves to you the more time you spend listening.

*

I think that, in the course of my time as a writer, and analyst, of contemporary popular music, I have become self-aware enough to realize when am quick to refer to something as a “concept album.” Or, in more recent years, I have incorporated the phrase, “cycle of songs” into my lexicon. Bitter, as a whole, is connected by not even loose threads—but threads that are, a lot of the time, rather tight. There are sounds, or song structures, that sound eerily familiar, introduced within the album’s first half, and then returning, albeit in slightly altered form, within the latter portion.

And there is, of course, the conceit of the album’s lyrics—the idea of the “break up” album, with Ndegeocello reflecting, both in assuming the role of the protagonist, as well as serving as an observer or narrator, on what comes after the end of a relationship. It, smartly, does not try to track, in a linear sense, the relationship’s end, or what ultimately led to it; in its sparsity and spectral nature, musically, it works to create these vivid, beautiful, and often somber moments, or fragments, of what no longer is, what, if anything happens next, and all of the conflicting emotions that come along with that.

Because it is very intentional with how it is assembled, and the narratives it wishes to convey, the instrumental “Adam” that begins Bitter, really does serve as a prologue to what will then unfold after.

Occasionally, and it does not happen all that often, so it is rather stunning and surprising when it does, I will come across a song where its arranging is so good, or powerful, or hypnotic, that I would honestly listen to just an instrumental recording of it, like, all day. In some cases, it is an instrumental—I am thinking of the delicate, sweeping nature of “In The Deep Shade,” the gorgeous, wordless piece that begins The Frames’ 2001 album For The Birds. And for all of two and a half minutes, the stirring, theatrical, and sensual “Adam” is the kind of captivating that you never wish to end.

Beginning with just the dramatic sweeping of a string section, which lasts for well over a minute, creating a beautiful kind of suspended sense of tension, the groove-oriented percussion literally comes rolling in and solidifies a rhythm that the piece slinks along to for its final 60 seconds. And, I mean, that is it, honestly—layers of percussive elements rippling and coursing through to propel “Adam” forward, and the gradual sweeping, and swooning of the robust string arrangement. 

It sounds so simple, doesn’t it? 

And it lasts for barely two minutes. 

But, even without words, or any other accompaniment, it says so much, or, rather, conveys so much about the tone of the album, in terms of the kind of organic, “natural” sounds Ndegeocello will be using throughout, and the kind of seriousness, or the gravity of its subject matter, once the lyrics arrive in the next track.

“Adam,” even though you, or at least I, wish for it to last longer, or continue spiraling delicately, it does not run the risk of overstaying its welcome before it fades out. 

Bitter, in all its meticulousness and deliberateness, is not bookended with the additional, brief, instrumental piece—fittingly titled “Eve,” which is sequenced as the tenth track, tucked in just shortly before the album reaches its conclusion.

And there are these places, throughout Bitter, where it feels like there are these musical echoes, or one song recalling even the slightest melody, or a familiar feeling, from one earlier within the album—and one might think that, on a second instrumental, with a title that seemingly implies it to be a companion to how the album begins, there would be a continuation in sound, or some familiar, or similar elements.

At all of 85 seconds, I can’t even say that “Eve” is a “funhouse mirror” kind of reflection of the warm, gorgeous, sweeping groove of “Adam.” Structured around sheer dissonance, “Eve” is a fascinating, but extremely unsettling detour from the rest of the album’s overall aesthetic. Slowly creeping in with an exhalation run through distortion and the slightest reverb, a series of harsh noises begin to circle around endlessly, creating an undercurrent for both a jittery rush of noise that is both thrilling but also disorienting when it ripples through, as well as a short melody played out on esoteric Eastern-sounding string instrument. 

“Eve,” seemingly a sketch, or an experiment in texture, is over before it even really gets going, or truly builds any momentum, with the final sustained notes of dissonance seamlessly gliding into the compressed, muffled drum machine rhythm at the top of the smolder and longing of “Wasted Time.”

One of the most genuinely interesting songs on Bitter, just in terms of the way it juxtaposes the more natural, or organic sounding instruments and playing, with the clattering of the drum programming underneath it as it begins, and throughout, there are just the faintest similarities to how “Wasted Time” unfolds, in pacing, yes, just a little, but also in the chords used, and the rise and fall within the song, to the album’s third track, “Faithful.” 

Slow burning, and lyrically, full of resentment and remorse, “Faithful” is not exactly a duet, or at least it is not one in the formal sense—Ndegeocello is joined, often singing in unison, but not perfect unison, which adds to the song’s genuinely interesting nature, by the soulful, if not weary, voice of another singer—who, unfortunately, I am unable to truly figure out the identity of. The album’s liner notes in the 2022 vinyl reissue of Bitter, as well as in the information online about the album, neglects to identify who, from the list of names that appear under the headline of “Musicians,” is the featured vocalist. 

Regardless of their identity, the way the voices blend together, but also are just slightly behind one another on the delivery of specific words, or whole phrases, creates a very effective haunting and somber feeling that is sustained right up through til the song’s very, very abrupt ending.

I am remiss to say that musically, “Wasted Time” moves along with a bit of a trudge—I think that might come from the slower pacing it begins with, and the programmed drum beat you hear in that opening. Live percussion does come rolling in, gently, as is the case in a lot of the songs on Bitter—splitting itself between a rhythmic clattering sound, and that delicate, jazz-inspired drumming, the latter of which creates a somber shuffling sensation.

There are certainly places throughout Bitter where there is a more clearly defined kind of give and take in how the instruments are used to create, or build, on a sense of tension, and as a whole, these songs rarely do give us any release. A song like “Wasted Time,” in how it does slink, and slither along, almost casually, with the mournful pedal steel, a subtle but strong bass line, and a quiet layer of funk-adjacent electric guitar noodling buried very low in the mix, the song manages to sustain all of this, and none of it is really ever at risk of getting away from Ndegeocello and her assemblage of musicians, whomever they might be. It remains in this holding pattern, as the narrative slowly slowly unfolds.

There is what could be considered an accusatory, or an intentionally hurt and hurtful, tone to the lyrics—though the words are not exactly hurled towards the off-stage antagonist in “Wasted Time,” but rather, they stagger out slowly into the rhythm. It’s an angry song. Not exactly. But it is spiteful. And, as the album’s title implies, it’s embittered. 

“You rarely notice, but I hang on your every word,” Ndegeocello begins. “Everything you say—you are much too busy to notice me. You turn, and walk away into another’s arms. Hopeless, ashamed—I wish I could hold you that way,” she, as well as the additional vocalist, continue. “Brokenhearted, I dream for you to notice me.”

“Wasted Time,” even in the deliberate slow groove that it finds itself in musically, is just inherently bleak, in terms of what this narrative is depicting—the kind of longing that is unproductive, or unhelpful, to the party who feels it, all of it seemingly unspoken to the object of their desire. 

“In my fantasy, you are asleep beside me,” this portrait continues. “I feel you breathe. If only I could be there for you—the one that you make love to.”

The spitefulness, or the embittered view, comes in the song’s chorus: “Wasted time on loving you,” it begins. “Wasted time on someone who won’t love you as much as I.”

And there is something startling that occurs in “Wasted Time,” for as slow-moving and deliberate in its structure as it is. And I will admit that, during my initial, somewhat passive listens through with Bitter, a year ago, via a streaming platform—I didn’t really put it together at first. And then in realizing what was happening, I was confident that there was some kind of issue with the song itself.

But. Once the 2022 vinyl reissue of Bitter arrived at my home, and “Wasted Time” concluded the same, very abrupt way, as it had been going with what I was listening to on the computer, I tried to wrap my head around the intention behind this decision.

“Wasted Time,” as a song, does not arrive at what you would call a traditional musical conclusion—it doesn’t wind itself down to, like, a natural ending, nor does it slowly fade itself out. It just stops, suddenly. Abruptly. Not even midway through a lyric being sung, the song cuts off. 

A lot of the lyrics from “Wasted Time” repeat themselves, or are returned to, the longer the song manages to sustain itself, and as it approaches this sudden ending,Ndegeocello finds herself revisiting the first verse—“You turn and walk away into another’s arms. Hopeless, ashamed—I wish I could hold you that way.” 

Broken—

Not even “brokenhearted.” Just “broken,” and then a beat of silence before the delicate strums of the acoustic guitar from the opening of the album’s final track, “Grace.” 

Broken.

It, of course, like so many minor details within the fabric of Bitter is intentional. Certainly. Intentional, but strange. Or, if not strange, startling. Or surprising. Not just in the way this choice is executed in the context of the album. But the decision to do so, with the hope that the audience will, maybe not on the first listen through, but eventually, understand.

Not even brokenhearted. Just broken.

*

And, of course, the more jazz-leaning, or loose, or naturalistic textures and aesthetic of Bitter can be heard in the album’s first proper track, “Fool of Me”—in the way it begins gently and then finds its way into a soulful rise and fall, as it recedes back into the hush it began with, but that kind of feeling of musical freedom to perhaps explore the space, within a song, or at least see where something potentially may be going, can truly be experienced on the stirring and then ultimately searing and dramatic third track, “Faithful.”

“Faithful” begins with a huge, open sounding progression of chords on the piano—mournful, or downcast, certainly, and again, slanting ever so slightly into a more jazz, or at least a much smoother kind of R&B sound, as brushed percussion tumbles around delicately, with the firm, gentle pluck of a melody (different from the one on the piano) on the acoustic guitar slides in, all of it swirling to craft the foundation for Ndegeocello’s soulful, husky, and contemplative voice. 

Musically, “Faithful” does eventually tighten itself up, or maybe, finds its way into more focused direction, but it does take awhile—well beyond the second time the chorus arrives, and even then, there is still like a very free, or open kind of feeling as the instruments swirl around—dizzying, truly, right up until the end, and I am remiss to refer to the aesthetic, in its free and open kind of feeling, as “playful,” because it is far from that. There’s a seriousness, or something ominous that hangs over it all, even in the kind of weightless way it continues to writhe.

“Faithful” does reach a crescendo where it does, in fact, feel like it is heading towards a conclusion, but it finds, albeit briefly, a second wind, with a little over a minute left, when an absolutely searing electric guitar solo comes in. It doesn’t seem out of place, exactly, though there are really no other moments quite like this on the record, and it does take the song, as it works its way towards the finale, to a place of both cacophony and grandeur. 

The song’s arranging, in all of its looseness, or wherever it ultimately flows to, does not work to “offset” the inherent darkness, and sadness in the lyrics—it does distract slightly, but only slightly. I mean, given the conceit around the album, and the album’s title, there’s really no getting around what Ndegeocello has written a bulk of these songs to be about, and the tone she wishes to convey, and “Faithful” is among the songs where the kind of tumultuousness and heartbreak are unavoidable, as is the unflinching way she looks within.

“My daddy made no excuse—I believe my lies are truth,” she begins, before sneering, “Why won’t you eat what you’re fed?”

And it should not be surprising that, in an album about the end of a relationship, there is a space where both a sadness and a lust coexist, as strange as that might sound. Or. Maybe to you, as it is to me, it is a space that you know well. 

“When I touch myself, I think only of you,” she continues, then adds, almost as an aside, “And when I touch someone else.”

That space—where there is an unabashed lust, and sorrow, or sadness, continues to grow within the second verse. “I hear voices, and I can’t stand to be alone—‘cause emptiness is all I’ve ever known. Soiled by my lust, I feel no shame,” Ndegeocelloconfesses. “No longer forsaken when they call my name. Beautiful angels come to my bed. I am satisfied—on their flesh, I have fed.”

Within the through line of Bitter, even though Ndegeocello, herself, is not always the protagonist, and the songs themselves do not unfold in a linear way, by the end of the album, on “Grace,” she is, as much as she is able to, asking for a forgiveness of sorts, for whatever transgressions have occurred within the context adjacent to the narrative. But, on “Faithful,” I mean she does ask for forgiveness, though it is a kind of quiet, nonchalant ask, rather than the more soulful and buoyant pleadings that we hear at the end of the record. More than anything, here, she’s looking at herself in an unflattering and honest way—both of which are truly admirable in terms of their observations. 

“No one is faithful,” she concedes. “I am weak. I’ll go astray. Forgive me for my ways.”

*

There is, of course, a beauty throughout Bitter in how it sounds. And even in the overall theme that brings this record together, there are places where it is surprising how bright and deeply soulful it can sound—I am thinking of the slinking, dazzling R&B groove of “Loyalty.” 

But the album works the best, or is the most impactful, or does have the effect that I think Ndegeocello had intended, when it turns itself more inward, or is a little more melancholic and gentle in its arrangements. 

And, maybe you, reader, had surmised this already, at this point in the analysis of the album—Bitter is not inaccessible. I mean. Not really. There are songs that, for a casual listener, are very approachable. However, like the moments of beauty, often when things are pointed inward and sound more melancholic and gentle, this album, from beginning to end, is ultimately a big ask of its listener. 

In part because it is a collection of songs that are loosely tied together through a larger theme, or concept, and in part because, yes, even if there are places where it is a little easier or more palatable to listen passively, Ndegeocello is not entirely concerned with sustaining that. There are places where it is frustrating, or puzzling, or feels just entirely too loose for its own good. Not that the songs feel “unfinished” or rushed, but that there is just like a little left to be desired in a way. 

The title track, arriving just shy of the album’s halfway point, is one of those places. It is gorgeous, objectively, in how it sounds, but it also is, at least for me, and potentially for you as well, too fragmented—or at least fragmented in the lyrics, relying heavily on the fragile beauty of the sparse and heartbreaking arranging. 

There is, of course, a folk adjacency to some of the songs on Bitter—there is a restlessness to how it doesn’t necessarily shift genres exactly, but how it effortlessly combines elements in some places, or leans heavily on one, more than another, elsewhere. And the title track is one of the moments on Bitter where Ndegeocello steers things into that kind of folk, very acoustic aesthetic. It is primarily focused around the contemplative, precise, and intimate finger plucks of the acoustic guitar—lush, and just a little cavernous in how it sounds, with her voice just as, if not more, contemplative, allowing it to glide above the guitar strings.

In its fragmented nature, lyrically, there isn’t really a chorus that Ndegeocello returns to on “Bitter,” but, following the first utterance of a variation on the title, additional, robust layers of guitars arrive, along with a low, rumbling bass line, and the haunting, gorgeous accompaniment of a string section, all of it slowly, swirling around, at times overwhelming itself, but also, in moments when it matters, giving each element enough room to breathe within the atmosphere of the song.

Really, the fragmented nature in “Bitter” is in its lyrics. There aren’t many. An on the page, it looks more like a poem, or something left uncompleted, so it is impressive that Ndegeocello is able to finesse them enough, allowing them to stretch and coast into just the right place within the ever gently moving sounds beneath her voice. 

The opening line to “Bitter” is among the most evocative on the album, just in terms of the portrait it paints, and the emotions it stirs. “You push me away, bitterly,” Ndegeocello remarks, pulling that last word up into a higher register. “My apologies fall on your deaf ears. You curse my name, bitterly,” she continues. “And now your eyes, they look at me…bitterly.”

Because of the pacing it moves at, I do hesitate to say that “Bitter” moves with an urgency, but there is a manic nature, or feeling, to what few lyrics there are, as they continue unfolding. “I stand ashamed, amidst my foolish pride,” she continues. Not really pleading, but more just plaintively observing. “For us, there’ll be no more. And now my eyes look at you, bitterly.”

“Bitter” is one of the songs that does, at least to my ears, share some similarities, or you can hear the slightest of echoes in, in a short song from the second half of the record—“Beautiful.” It is very similar, also, in its fragmented nature, lyrically, yes, but more than that, it feels like there is a musical familiarity as well. 

“Beautiful” is among the shorter tracks on the album—just a little longer than the instrumental Bitter opens with, and in music and lyrics, it does kind of unfold in a way that is akin to being halfway between being awake and asleep. Not a fever dream, because there is not an emergent nature to it. But there is a tenderness. And a great care. It is sensual, and full of lust, and longing—like a haze has descended, in a sense; very delicate, and specifically thoughtful, and extraordinarily hushed as it moves through all of that.

Opening with the quiver of a synthesizer—one of the few places on the album where there is a less organic or naturalistic texture used, “Beautiful” is skeletal in its arranging, focused on the very soft rise and fall, and the beautifully woven acoustic guitar and piano, with Ndegeocello’s voice, singing quietly, in a whisper—a whisper full of thirst, and longing, then also just speaking some of these desire in a low voice that conveys what it is like to be lost in this kind of moment with someone, and letting them envelop you completely, physically, and emotionally.

“Such pretty hair,” Ndegeocello begins, with a playfulness in her voice. “May I kiss you—may I kiss you there?,” she asks.  “So beautiful you are. So beautiful.”

“Please, don’t move. It feels so good to me,” she continues. “Tell me in my ear. Beautiful…so very beautiful.”

And, because I am hearing these musical similarities, or familiar elements, in places throughout Bitter, a song like “Beautiful” is not exactly an inverse, or an antithesis of “Bitter.” But in some ways, I suppose they are—just based on the lyrics, and the ideas within each song, respectively. One is about a lack of connection, both physically and emotionally; the other is about making that connection, but perhaps more physical, than anything else. But they are both set to music containing just the slightest echoes of each other—a trick within the world of the album that does both serve it well, and not. 

The not simply being that it does make the album begin, at times, to sound similar in a bad, or uninspired way. Which is unfortunate, because it is a very inspired album Just even in how much genre, or stylistic shuffling it does, these moments then do make Bitter feel long or repetitive; but it is a genuinely interesting notion—and that is, like, the thing that does serve it well. The fact that it is so insular, and becomes a little self-referential, grounds the album within itself.

“Beautiful” is short of three minutes in length, and its use of lyrics is sparse, to say the least. In its beauty, and in the way it depicts this kind of intimate, quiet moment, it is the kind of song, honestly, much like the moment it is detailing, that you do wish would last much, much longer.

*

Tell me again about the distance between competition and romance.

Between rage and necessity.

The film Love and Basketball was released in the year 2000—the year after Ndegeocello released Bitter. And it was, of course, a film that I was very aware of through the huge marketing push on MTV, where I can remember seeing the trailer for it within commercial breaks on the network. 

But, maybe because it was about basketball (but ultimately about other things, too), and maybe because it was a drama (albeit a romantic one), I never felt compelled to watch Love and Basketball, and had truthfully never been interested in it, until I read a piece by Hanif Abdurraqib, published in “The Paris Review,” in 2021, about the film, and his relationship to it—specifically, the ending, where the characters of Quincy and Monica play a high stakes game of one-on-one in a driveway, during the middle of the night.

Friends since childhood, rivals within the sport, in a sense, at one-time romantic partners, and now, well into adulthood, estranged, Monica, played by Sanaa Lathan, confesses her love to Quincy, played by Omar Epps, two weeks before his wedding.

The game of one-on-one is for his heart—she wants to win his affection.

In Aburraqib’s essay, he recalls how, upon his initial viewing of the film, in high school, he did not care for the way it ended, though he has admittedly become more romantic with age, and has become more forgiving of how Love and Basketball ends.

“Of course, when I was young, I was in love with everyone,” he writes. “Or willing to fall in love with everyone. There was no complication or tension to it. It was the ruthless pursuit of a feeling and nothing else. Noting that ever needed to be weighed or acted on. Once I arrived at the glittering, irresistible emotion, I simply settled into it, stagnant, uneager to act.”

“Because of this, I did not (and likely still do not fully) understand the complications that come from loving someone for a long time,” he continues. “Or wanting someone to love you for a long time. What might arise when the person you’ve fought against desiring finally comes to you in a night time that cradles your past and present, and says, This is it. It’s now, or else.”

Aburraqib explains that, when he was young, he was annoyed that the characters played for his heart—his affection. Now, he knows the the heart is always being played for, and, “always playing itself.”

I remember when you filled my heart with joy. Was I blind to the truth—just there to fill space?

Toward the end of his essay, Abdurraqib says what Love and Basketball gets right is the truth of competitive basketball as an “act of physical intimacy.”

Specifically, the final scene. 

“The point when the game decidedly gets serious. Trash talk replaced by silence, which is then replaced by slow, heavy, methodical breathing,” he observes. “A person leaning their weight against the sturdy tower of another’s body. Toward the end, when legs have given whatever it is they could give, there is a turn. To stay upright, or to grab onto the waist of someone you are too tired to keep chasing.”

Now, tell me again about the distance between competition and romance, between rage and necessity. 

Tell me the exact point where the distance collapses and everything blurs, for a moment, before something new comes into focus.

And it doesn’t begin until the scene, and the stakes, and the demeanor between both Epps’ Quincy and Lathann’s Monica have been set—but, there is a moment, much to Monica’s disappointment, when after Qunicy has angrily sunk another basket, that the beginning of “Fool of Me,” the second track off of Bitter, begins, and does become a rather integral par to how the scene unfolds—a third, as important, character, in the driveway basketball court, in the middle of the night.

You made a fool of me—tell me why?

Tell me again about the distance between competition and romance, between race and necessity. 

“Fool of Me” is the second track on Bitter—and like, it really serves as the beginning of the album’s journey, following the instrumental prologue, “Adam.” It’s the first place where we hear Ndegeocello’s unmistakable voice, and we get a feeling, musically, of what kind of album it is going to be. The arranging on “Fool of Me” is among the gentlest—deliberately so, with Ndegeocello’s vocals coming in just above a fragile whisper, and the space, or silence, that hangs in between the notes that trickle out from the icy piano, and even in between the taps of the cymbal and hit of the snare drum—those seemingly intentional silences are given the attention and played with the kind of care that the instruments themselves here are shown.

But in that delicacy, and silence, or in those spaces created, it does also allow itself, slowly, to glide into the more soulful and soothing nature that Bitter finds itself at times—things pick up, or there is, like, more momentum, as the second verse begins, with the instruments growing more confident and sounding more robust—the slow, mournful glissade of the pedal steel here is an excellent inclusion—and some extremely lush, gorgeous backing vocals cascading off of Ndegeocello’s own at a very specific moment as a means of punctuating what, within the world of the song, is happening.

Ndegeocello, as she does in a number of places on Bitter, treads the line between speaking and singing the words to “Fool of Me,” and here, she does both with a quiet, or hesitant nature, that serves the song well, as a means of setting up the kind of pensive, often emotional, and regularly somber or sullen, reflection that occurs the further into the album we’re pulled.

Lyrically, then, “Fool of Me” does serve as a thesis statement of sorts for Bitter—“I remember when you filled my heart with joy,” she begins, letting the words tumble out and find their way into the delicate sounds that are slowly gathering beneath. “Was I blind to the truth—just there to fill the space,” she continues. “‘Cause now you have no interest in anything that I have to say. And I have allowed you to make me—I feel so dumb,” she stammers, as an aside almost.

“What kind of fool am I that you so easily set me aside,” she asks before the chorus.

And there is a growing desperation, and a bit of a frantic nature, that arrives in the second verse—a little less pensive, or hushed, in comparison to the first. “I want to kiss you—does she want you with the pain that I do,” Ndegeocello declares. “I smell you in my dreams,” she continues, with a pleading, giving way to an anguish. “But now, when we’re face to face, you won’t look me in the eye.”

“No time. No friendship. No love,” she concedes. “You say, don’t touch you. I can’t touch you no more.”

And there is an ask—not really a question but a request, or a demand, that comes in the chorus, which, at least within the world of the song, goes unanswered. “You made a fool of me. Tell me why,” Ndegeocello sings. “You say that you don’t care, but we made love, tell me why.”

It is somber, certainly. I mean, it needs to be, to set the stage for the rest of the songs that follow. But it is gorgeous—the right blend of all the aesthetics that the album indulges in, effortlessly and slowly swirling together to create something otherworldly in just how stunning it is, and something that does ultimately grab your attention and will hold you there for the remainder of the album’s running time.

“Fool of Me” was, of course, not written for Love and Basketball, and it is one of the two moments within the film’s soundtrack that breaks from the accuracy of the time period in which the movie takes place and the songs that would have existed in that era. But. This break from accuracy, however small of a detail it might be to you, is truthfully worth it. Because this scene itself—regardless of how you might feel about it, or how it unfolds, and how the movie ultimately ends, seems like it was written, and if not written, at least edited, around the rise, fall, and swelling within the song, and even down to some of the imagery within the lyrics.

But there is an irony, I guess, or at least a kind of separation that occurs for the sake of the drama of using a song that sounds like this within the kind of scene it soundtracks. “Fool of Me” ends with no resolution—and it is a song about an ending. The relationship itself is over before the first notes are even played. And it is more of a real-time grappling with what that feels like. And it is stirring, of course, and effective, to hear it within the context of this moment in Love and Basketball. But, the characters on the screen are moving in the opposite trajectory from the characters as depicted in the lyrics.

Even so. There is a place where it all overlaps, before it continues moving. 

Tell me again about the distance between competition and romance.

Between rage and necessity. 

You can see this next part happening on screen, honestly. And it is beautiful. And it is so subtle. 

Tell me the exact point where the distance collapses and everything blurs, for a moment, before something new comes into focus.

*

Because vinyl reissues are now a commodity, or an “industry” of sorts, I am never really certain what kind of thought, if any, goes into the when, and why, the decision is made to press and release an album, previously unavailable on LP—usually with some kind of extra material included, or touted as a limited edition, Ndegeocello’s old label (she is now signed to the storied jazz label Blue Note) Maverick, in association with the vinyl subscription service Run Out Groove, reissued Bitter two years ago. 

Sequenced across two black and gold splattered LPs, Bitter’s fourth side contains a handful of instrumental versions, and at the end of side three is a surprising alternate take of the otherwise dark “Wasted Time.”

And, earlier, many thousands of words ago, I mentioned there was a series of coincidences that did ultimately introduce me to Bitter, an album that I otherwise was not familiar with. All of these happened around roughly the same time—June and July of 2023. The last would have been my first viewing of the film Love and Basketball, taking an alarming amount of notes on it for a conversation I would be having about it on an episode of a movie recap podcast I had been invited on as a guest. And, perhaps, the first would have been the aforementioned “Sunday Review” on Pitchfork—a piece that touches a bit on the lore surrounding the album, as well as the tone of the songs. The review is more or less complimentary, or positive, and while the author of the piece is not solely responsible for the site’s polarizing numerical score, it was bestowed a 9.2 out of 10.

In the middle, I think, was a mention of the album’s stark, haunting cover art, in a series of Instagram stories from Hanif Abdurraqib—the album cover itself eventually being mentioned, just in passing, in the opening essay of his most recent book, There’s Always This Year, in a sprawling anecdote about, among other things, hair, and the relationship people have to their hair, at different points in their lives.

As I often do, when I convince myself, and then talk myself out of, buying literally anything, I debated, a long time, last summer, on if I should purchase a copy of Bitter from a seller online, and if so, what should I get? Should I try to purchase it used, on compact disc, which is what I often, impulsively do?

I did, after more deliberation than perhaps you might expect, find myself ordering a copy of the 2022 double LP reissue—I get that the black and gold splatter of the vinyl is supposed to be charming, or somehow tie it to the colors found on the photograph that graces the cover, but it is, honestly, as most splattered variants of a vinyl pressing are, hideous. 

The reissue itself is not remastered, or specifically mastered for vinyl to my knowledge—just simply presented on vinyl for the first time. And despite what some audiophiles might be arguing about in the comments section on the listing page for this specific edition on Discogs, it does sound impressive, or at least there is a warmth and robust feeling to the way the album sounds in this format—giving the naturalistic, loose sound the album was recorded with room to breathe and expand off of the turntable, into the ears of the listener.

The additional material on the reissue’s fourth side, as well as the alternate take of “Wasted Time,” that is tacked on at the end of the third side, are not available on streaming services, and to my knowledge, were previously unreleased, which makes them a selling point, to some listeners, for the reissued version of the album.

The instrumental tracks on the fourth side are compelling—certainly “Fool of Me,” even without Ndegeocello’s vocals, or the gorgeous swooning harmony vocals that hit, specifically on the “When we’re standing face to face, you can’t look me in the eye,” line, is just simply stunning to listen to, and in this instrumental presentation, you can really hear the icy, delicate beauty that it staggers forward and then swells with.

Songs that have “alternate versions” or additional takes, as a whole, are fascinating to me, mostly because I wonder about the process—the process that went into arranging, or deconstructing a song a second time, if not more, and the process that goes into selecting which version makes it onto the record, and why. 

Here, there is a surprisingly lightness, comparatively, in this additional version of “Wasted Time”—no longer the ominous, somber dirge, and now missing the additional vocals, the tempo itself moves a little faster, and it moves with a little less restraint in a more R&B leaning, jazzier arrangement. 

It doesn’t change the meaning of the song—not really. Just the presentation. And it is not better executed, and it is certainly not worse by any means. If anything, it is just a small window, or glimpse, into the creative process within the studio when Ndegeocello was working on the album, and a hint at the myriad directions things could have gone—the same can be said, almost, for the instrumentals included. She did say, in the wake of Peace Beyond Passion that she had potentially said all she could say, lyrically, and in her exhaustion and sorrow, considered making only instrumental music going forward.

*

I am hesitant to say that, in the end, Bitter is an uneven album. Because that isn’t really the case. Especially if you sit with it, and listen, from beginning to end, without interruption. Because it is really, earnestly, enjoyable. And it works like as a whole piece. 

But if you begin taking things singularly, or removing them from the context of the album, what I will say is that if anything, it is relatively front-loaded with its most genuinely interesting material in its first half, with songs that are still rewarding, certainly, but perhaps a little less emotionally captivating, or attention-grabbing, within its latter half. 

Meshell Ndegeocello, with the kind of confrontational or at times, inaccessible albums that she was putting out in the mid to late 1990s and into the early 2000s, was, at least at that time, not an artist who was probably all that concerned or interested with the commercial performance of her records, or attempting to repeat whatever mainstream success she had based off of her debut from 1993. But maybe she was. Maybe she still is. I shouldn’t speak on her behalf. Information about chart placement and sales of Bitter is part of its Wikipedia entry—the same goes for other albums within her canon. 

It is apparent to me that Maverick Records more than likely did not know the best way to support or promote her successfully, and that she, as an artist, I would argue did not so much “defy” genre or classification of the music, but she certainly scoffed at it the very notion being labeled. 

Bitter, upon its release, was received relatively well critically. It was called the “album of the year” by “Vibe,” as did “Newsweek,” and “Billboard” revered it as a “modern masterpiece,” though not all press about it was as glowing. The “Chicago Tribune” said it was a “long, bittersweet downer,” which can either be a bad thing, or a good thing, I think, depending on how you take it. And the newspaper, the “Hartford Courant,” said it committed the “mortal sin of dullness.”

What is surprising about Bitter is how accessible or soulful it can sound, while still continuing to pull itself further inward at times. Sonically, it is a marvel, in terms of its production values, but also in the musicianship you can hear throughout. It is also a marvel in its thoughtful lyric writing, with Ndegeocello both playing herself as protagonist, but also standing in for other characters, or voices, of an opposing gender, which gives the conceit of Bitter a much larger worldview, rather than that of just one person who is attempting to make sense of the aftermath of a relationship.

There is of course a place where lust, or a thirst, or a desire, can converge with a sadness, and a sorrow. If you are chronically online in the same way that I often am, you will know there are countless jokes about the idea of being both sad and horny at the same time. It is possible. It doesn’t feel great—it feels weird, and a little uncomfortable, like you should lean into one, over the other, and that you cannot certainly feel both.

Bitter is a place where both of those things exist, and they do so with stunning beauty. You can be sad. A relationship can be over. But you can still long to be touched. Or to touch someone who is now, perhaps, just out of reach. 

I often talk, perhaps too often for my own good and the good of those around me, about the “kingdom of desire.” Bitter sidesteps that, in terms of its writing, because Ndegeocello takes us into so many moments that come after the want, or the yearning. You’ve gotten what you want, and now what. Well, in this case, things fall apart. You ask for redemption. You still have needs. You wish to act on those. 

In his essay on Love and Basketball, Hanif Abdurraqib talks about the complications that come from loving someone for a long time, or from wanting someone to love you for a long time. The heart, he says, is always being played for, and playing itself. You can see that unfold in that last scene in the film. And you can honestly hear it within the confines of Bitter. The need to love, and the want for someone to love you. And the heart. How it plays itself. Always.

Now. Tell me again. About the distance between competition and romance. Between rage and necessity.

Tell me the exact point where the distance collapses and everything blurs, for a moment, before something new comes into focus.