Kimya Dawson, a forty-three-year-old punk rock soccer mom with conspiracy theories about what

scientists are telling us about what’s really in the ocean and knuckle tattoos that say “LAFF LOUD” and

“ROCK SOFT”, is an indie folk punk singer/songwriter who is the personification of cool as black ice. As

half of the Moldy Peaches, a folky band that worked on the Juno soundtrack, Dawson started her career

with co-singer Adam Green; however, she began her solo career after the band’s hiatus in 2004.

Although never making it past the breach of indie, Kimya Dawson has made her parents proud, as their

mother once told her, “I hope someday you get paid for being Kimya Dawson”. With her simplistic

lyricism, child-like acoustic tune, and subtly morbid story-telling that contradicts her effortless, homey

rhythm, her first solo album, I’m Sorry That Sometimes I’m Mean was a cleverly dark re-telling of her

own experiences with pessimism and the real world. From the second track of Reminders of Then, where

Dawson sings, “my finger’s on the trigger / And my eyes are on the prize”, Dawson narrates profound

stories of her own life and experiences she shares with others, such as Rocks with Holes where she tells

the story about a young girl combating insecurity and learning to find happiness or Will You Hold My

Hand? where she talks about her opinion on child abuse and dealing with it in the perspective of the

child versus social services. With her folky style, Dawson presents herself as a profound, albeit cynical

story-teller, setting her career for a good start.

In her second solo album, released in 2006, a full four years after her first, portrays levels of optimism

and kindness and overall lovingness to everyone who is having a hard time with lyrics like “If you wanna

kill yourself, remember that I love you,” from Loose Lips, track three on the album that gets its name

from this song. With her fast-paced lyricism and clever ways to talk about why people matter, one of the

most monumental songs on the album that really captures the foundation of insecurity is The

Competition, where Kimya talks about her own little voices in her head telling her she is not good

enough and how she overcame them with song. Overcoming insecurity and achieving happiness is really

the predominant idea behind Dawson’s most famous album, and with her happy-go-lucky attitude and

loving pleasantries of what it takes to be worth something, this album becomes the pinnacle of Kimya

Dawson’s ideology of self-love.

Kimya Dawson, despite her recently inactivity with her most recent album being in 2011, does not

disappoint with Thunder Thighs. With more in depth analysis of her own life and likely the most personal

information she ever put into her song-writing such as that written into Complicated (Same Shit),

“Thunder Thighs” reaches a new level of interpersonal story-telling and comedy that Dawson has not

reached before. Such as that in songs like All I Could Do, Solid and Strong, and Year 10, Dawson talks

about the upswings of parenthood from a life of imbalance, the lovingness of her mother and how she

resonates with her by her strength, and times of her school days that accesses the heart of the listener,

regardless of age.

Kimya Dawson, a fine lyricist with a quirky sense of humor and her own distinguished sense of self, is

probably the most profound singer who functions best when talking about how she has overcome her

own world of suffering that she talks about in songs. She’s relatable, funny, and adorably punk rock. Her

story-telling skills only grow bolder with age.