On Britney Spears

“What Child Is This” is the first song Britney Spears performed live, as a kid growing up in rural Louisiana. She was born into a working-class family with an alcoholic father and a disgruntled mother who would scream at him fruitlessly when he came home drunk. Britney would urge her mother to stop shouting, arguing that her father was incapacitated. Rage wouldn’t alleviate anything. She was often nervous on car rides with her father, because he would mutter full conversations between himself and the demons he was likely staving off with liquor by night. Her paternal grandmother, Emma Jean Spears, killed herself at her infant son’s grave when she was just thirty-one. What child is this, who, laid to rest, / on Mary’s lap is sleeping, / whom angels greet with anthems sweet / while shepherds watch are keeping?. . . / why lies he in such mean estate, / where ox and ass are feeding?