My first album was Hey Babe. The title wasn’t a sassy ironic come-on (though it did land me on the cover of Sassy magazine) or a quasi-empowering take-back-the-phrase kind of thing. It was an earnest plea to be accepted into the rock-and-roll boys club continuum. And I thought I had made a rock-and-roll record. “Hey babe,” sang Lou Reed. “Hey babe,” sang J. Mascis. I was just trying to continue the tradition but I knew that as a girl it was hopeless and that I would never be accepted on equal terms. The almost universal misinterpretation of the title and of my intentions was the first in a long line of misunderstandings.