BITCH by Nat Hills
A cover of the effervescent Meredith Brooks classic from 1997.
Manchester. 1997. Rain. Another night at the SU. Manchester Students’ Union, then as now, has some incredible music venues known collectively as The Academy. There’s the main Academy. Then there’s Academy 2 and 3 and something called Club Academy. I saw the Bangles in Academy 1, I think. It seemed enormous. I saw Sheryl Crow in a very small room there. It must have been ‘95 because by ‘97 she was playing the biggest indoor venue in the country, the NYNEX Arena. I saw Juliette Lewis in the Academy. We passed her sweaty body around the room, over our heads. I have never forgotten those nights.
When we heard Meredith Brooks was coming to town, we all grabbed a ticket. She was the biggest new star of 1997 with her album, Blurring the Edges. Nobody had ever heard of her and I did not know until today that it was her second album. In our eyes, and in my ears, Meredith Brooks had only one song and it is called Bitch.
The bitches are back. The wonderful Kassi Ashton just released a much calmer, very different country song called Bitches. She had all the same issues that Meredith Brooks faced. Is that progress? Why in America is the word bitch enough to get you banned from the radio? Brooks’ record company, Interscope, had grown tired of her songs when songwriter Shelley Peiken watched her sing one night.
Shelley Peiken: “[Meredith] was introduced to me by her manager and I went to see her play at a club in Hollywood. I thought she had balls. I thought she could really sing. But I didn’t know what to write with her. Then I had this really miserable day and I started writing a song with the line, ‘I hate the world today.’ I thought, Oh my God, I’m gonna call that girl Meredith because she needed a song to bring to Interscope.”
As you might have guessed, Interscope were horrified. Meredith jumped back in her car and drove over to Capitol Records. They signed her that day and Bitch became a No. 2 around the world and No. 6 here. Although it never quite topped the charts, we never forgot Bitch, our generation. Somewhere else in England sat a teenaged Nat Hills, no doubt responding even more viscerally to this song because, like Meredith and Shelley, she was a girl who wanted a music career.
I hate the world today
You’re so good to me, I know, but I can’t change
Tried to tell you but you look at me like maybe
I’m an angel underneath
Innocent and sweet
Yes, it’s punchy from the off. Not only has it not dated, it has become even more relevant. When our girls wrote Bitch, they were frustrated with the 1997 music industry, as it was then, with Napster just bubbling up. Imagine what they would write today!
I’m a bitch, I’m a lover
I’m a child, I’m a mother
I’m a sinner, I’m a saint
I do not feel ashamed
I’m your Hell, I’m your dream
I’m nothing in between
You know you wouldn’t want it any other way
Who is she singing to? A man, yes, but who is he to her? There are moments when he is the boyfriend but there are moments when he could be any man, or even The Man. There are moments when he is Jimmy Iovine, the founder of Interscope Records, a man loved and loathed by female singers throughout the decades, not least by Stevie Nicks.
Nat’s version of Bitch is authentic and close to the original without trying to copy it. Meredith Brooks was almost forty when she sang this song, but the anger is that of a woman at the end of her rope. This was her final chance, and she felt it, and it garnered three Grammy nominations in 1998. MB had finally made it, and she was now middle-aged.
In this new version, Nat’s voice is a shade deeper yet just as angry. This Bitch is full of ‘90s music production and the video is a must-see. Filmed on a Ring doorbell (other doorbell cams are available) it has that earthy, grainy quality that we all remember from the MTV era and VHS.
Bitch is a song from a time when kids taped stuff of the radio and we taped Top of the Pops. Meredith Brooks, against all the odds, became the Killer Queen of 1997. A few months before I saw her live, MB hit TOTP herself. I shiver still to watch the footage. She was and remains a real rocker.
Nat Hills is a real rocker too, and I’ve enjoyed getting to know her this summer. Her EP says it all and is available now: Therapy In Session is a brilliant title with so many meanings, and a handful of bangers. She works hard on her own material but is also in-demand with her Miley and Cher tribute acts.
As you can see from the artwork below, Nat’s 2026 edition looks like you just found it in the loft, covered in cobwebs and untouched since 1997. That CD logo, that Parental Advisory sticker, those scuffed edges. It even has a dance mix and radio edit versions. She’s partying like it’s 1999 and it’s time to stream the new Bitch today!
You catch Nat Hills in person this year all over the country including at Isle of Wight Festival when she is one of the very first acts on their all-new country music stage, Last Chance Saloon.
