“lang was an androgyne from rural Canada who considered herself to be the reincarnation of Patsy Cline, convinced she was born to be a country star,” (Pitchfork). “Even in outlaw terms, she was a long shot in conservative Nashville, a city nonetheless seduced by her punky verve and saucy rambunctiousness, a hay-bale alternative to the genre’s burgeoning cosmopolitanism. She was accepted, to a degree—her vegetarianism and PETA allegiance notwithstanding—but lang knew that acceptance was creative death. By the early ’90s, she felt that she had exploited country’s full creative potential. Now was time to develop her own romantic language.” Her 1992 release, Ingénue, was the embodiment of that effort.
“Miss Chatelaine” was the album’s second single (after the #38 US/#8 Canadian hit “Constant Craving,” for which lang is generally best known). The track “earned its high camp credentials even before lang accompanied it with a video where she wore the high-bouffanted, ballgown-clad drag of femininity, the lesbian Liberace … ‘Miss Chatelaine’ is a towering millefeuille of accordion, frisky percussion and strings, a succession of audible exclamation points—a song with so many ornate moving parts that it’s easier to imagine its blueprint as a cuckoo clock than a black and white musical staff.”
“Miss Chatelaine” is built in E major overall, its relatively languid harmonic rhythm taking a back seat to the rangy melody, lang’s crystalline vocal, and her distinctive phrasing. A new dance partner, an instrumental bridge which jumps up a minor third to G major, cordially cuts in between 1:59 and 2:20, but then the tune reverts to its original key.
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