Caitlin Moran Builds A Girl Made Out Of Music (And Bad Sex And Top Hats)

The world got to know Caitlin (pronounced "cat-lin") Moran when she put out her bestselling memoir and feminist handbook How to Be A Woman back in 2011. Now the English writer and The Times of London columnist is back with another book – this time, a novel called How to Build A Girl. It’s about a teenager who drops out of high school and becomes a rock critic, which sounds suspiciously similar to Moran’s own story.

In a conversation with Soundcheck host John Schaefer, Moran reflects on her own journey of self-discovery through music criticism in the 1990's -- and shares a Pick Three playlist of a few of her favorite songs.

Interview Highlights: 

Catlin Moran, on her protagonist, Johanna Morrigan, abandoning her "fangirl" writing style and adopting a sarcastic, cynical style of music criticism: 

If you're projecting yourself as being a cynic and being angry, people will start being cynical and angry at you. And suddenly you'll be like, 'But I'm not a horrible person! I save worms when I find them on the pavement when it's rainy and they're drowning! I was just pretending!' But of course, only really an asshat would pretend to be an asshat. Let's all just be truthful about our love.

On The Stone Roses' song "I Am the Resurrection":

I come from a very working class, poor background. During the '80s in the UK, the story was that Margaret Thatcher had come along and crushed the working classes. The Stone Roses came along and they were a working class band, and they were incredibly proud of it. They had a real sense that the working classes are different from the middle classes -- and better. We are the people that forged the Industrial Revolution. We are the people that formed the Beatles. And the Stone Roses tapped into that working class heritage and pride. 

On the BBC's John Peel Show from in the 1990's: 

It was a place that you would go and meet fellow like-minded people. That show would broadcast out late at night, and every kind of kid who was part of the counter-culture or the underground would lie in bed on their headphones listening to Uncle John Peel playing you all these songs. And you felt like you weren't alone. It was like an imaginary nightclub in the sky that you could go to, even if you were just wearing your pajamas in bed in your parents' house. 

On Bikini Kill's "Rebel Girl": 

It was an amazing time to be a girl in the early '90s. Riot grrl was just starting to happen. As a fat, very friendless, very weird, over self-educated teenage girl, when I found out about riot grrl it just blew my mind. When "Rebel Girl" came out -- the lyrics of that are so great... "Rebel girl, you're the queen of my world." She wants to wear the rebel girl's clothes, she wants to sleep with her. The way that girls fall in love with other inspiring girls is such a beautiful thing and so underdocumented. 

On entering the music scene as a teenage girl in 1990's England: 

In the early '90s, when I walked into a record shop, I was very aware that not only were there no girls in there when I walked in, but probably no girls had ever walked in there. And that there was probably an alarm going off around the back, going, "Estrogen has been detected! Estrogen has been detected!"

On Crowded House's "Not the Girl You Think You Are":

In the U.K., people think Crowded House is MOR [middle of the road] pop. But if you talk to Bruce Springsteen, he thinks that Neil Finn from Crowded House is the greatest living songwriter. Paul McCartney, he would doff his cap to Neil Finn. I think in ten years' time, everyone will be going, "Yeah, I was always into Crowded House" in the same way they do about ABBA now.