I had no tribe during my first three years of high school. Desperate to be accepted by the in-crowd, but sick with anxiety if I was invited to one of their parties, I had no idea who I was. I had spots, wonky teeth and my hair was lank. I was kind of gangly and excruciatingly shy. I didn’t fit the mould, and I had no idea you could carve out your own space in the world.
Bombarded with TV shows such as Beverly Hills 90210 and Baywatch, while poring over teen magazines, I compared myself with the glossy, wholesome models that I saw – and felt that I was failing.
Everything changed when I first heard Courtney Love. I was kneeling on the floor next to my cheap 90s stacker system, aged 14. My boyfriend had lent me his copied tape of Hole’s debut album, Pretty on the Inside, and nothing prepared me for what I felt when I first heard Love scream. Pressing play, the lyrics “When I was a teenage whore” roared from my tinny little speakers. It sounded rebellious and raw – and like nothing you’d encounter in the 90210 district.
I’d never heard a woman sing like that – and knowing that Love played guitar and wrote her own music and lyrics made it even more real. I played Garbadge Man over and over – the lines about “letting the darkness up inside” felt strangely comforting. I didn’t fully understand it – but I knew I wanted more.
This was not female perfection; this was messy, undone and unfinished. Love’s tights were ripped and her hair was unkempt, with dark roots given space to breathe. She made me realise that our flaws should be celebrated, not shamed and hidden.
Hearing that album opened the door to more incredible female musicians – Babes in Toyland, the Breeders, Bikini Kill; women who were unafraid to turn themselves inside out and bare their chaotic souls. I fell acutely and chronically in love with all of them.
Of course, I was still me – I wasn’t Love, Kat Bjelland, Kim Deal or Kathleen Hanna, the frontwomen in these bands. I was never going to stand on stage and scream like that, and my teenage poetry was beyond cringe. But as I started becoming bolder, I found my own means of self-expression. I stopped hiding under baggy jeans and loose T-shirts because I was scared to be noticed. Instead, I made my fashion choices stand out more than my teeth and my spots ever did, swapping drab and boring clothes for charity-shop nightdresses, white fishnet tights and Mary Janes similar to those worn by my punk rock heroes. I smothered my lips in black cherry lipstick and lightened my hair with Sun In. It made me feel invincible.
I realised that Love didn’t sing because she had it all sussed; her lyrics were often about injustice, trauma and torture, not to mention misogyny and sexual violence. She sang about how women are expected to be, and about how we really are. She was proud to be a work in progress, and it made me realise that I didn’t have to have it all figured out in order to say what I felt. My confidence grew year on year as I began to form my own opinions and speak up for myself. When I was younger, I was deemed “difficult” for speaking out against the toxic culture at my workplace – but I refused to apologise, eventually walking away from a well-paid job in order to carve out a career as a freelancer. It wasn’t easy but I no longer felt like I was compromising myself.
I’m not perfect at being imperfect, either. I still panic about how I look and how I think I should look. I saw a play recently – Mary and the Hyenas, about the 18th-century writer and philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft, and there was a song about being a “fully formed fucked-up woman”, which struck a chord. I still listen to Hole, and all the bands I first fell in love with in the early 90s. They serve as an ongoing reminder that I needn’t apologise for being angry. I know that, sometimes, I will get it wrong.
Even now, 30 years later, Love remains the antithesis of beige. I don’t agree with everything she has said, or sung about, or posted on social media, but her unapologetic spirit can never be called bland. I’m all for loud, imperfect women. They keep the world turning, the music blasting – and they help shy girls, as I once was, to find their voice.
• When Sally Killed Harry by Lucy Roth, the pseudonym for Lucy Nichol, is published on 27 March (Avon Books, £9.99). To support the Guardian and the the Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
