Bebe Buell turns 72 today, and the rock & roll grand dame has never been more vital. Or more appreciative of her time on this planet.
Last summer, the singer, songwriter, and model was diagnosed with breast cancer after a routine mammogram. She had a lumpectomy, and then a breast reduction, before embarking on a holistic journey to regain her health. Buell succeeded and is presently showing no signs of cancer seven months after her surgery.
On Monday, she celebrates her resilience, while taking stock of the temporary nature of life, with the release of her new song and video “Skin Suit.” Buell delivers the gothic rock ballad, which she co-wrote with producer Greg Lattimer and her husband and creative partner, Jim Wallerstein, with gravitas, grace, and good ol’ fashioned theatricality. While her “skin suit” may be her very flesh and blood, she considers it no more important than the haute couture in her closet.
“This is just my skin suit/Hanging next to my Manuel,” she sings, cheekily name-checking the Nashville tailor famous for his rhinestoned creations. In the next line, Buell says she stores her “skin suit” next to “my Coco Chanel.”
“The ‘skin suit’ is the physical body. It’s not our soul. It’s what we use to be on this earth,” Buell tells Rolling Stone. “I had the title and I had the chorus in my head whirling around. And then after I got my diagnosis, it was almost like something channeled. I put my pen to a piece of paper and it literally just poured out of me exactly as I sing it.”
Despite its connection to her cancer battle, Buell is reluctant to describe “Skin Suit” as a survivor story. “It’s a warrior story, because I am a warrior that is not going to be killed in battle,” she says. “I’m being very Joan of Arc about this.”
In the video, directed by Alden Allen and Elise Lacret, Buell — in her Manuel pants and jacket — performs the song in front of an unfolding galaxy of stars. Long after she was famously photographed in the Seventies in a Creem T-shirt and little else, she embraces her decades. “I’m trying to age gracefully and show people that you can be very alive and very on the road to healing at all ages. And music is healing,” she says.
Buell, who’s lived in Nashville since 2013, continues to perform live. Back in 2018, she joined Steven Tyler onstage for “Train Kept A-Rollin’” during the Aerosmith frontman’s solo show in Nashville. Buell and Tyler are the parents of the actress Liv Tyler, and Buell says she sent “Skin Suit” to her longtime friend for him to hear. “Catchy as fuck,” Tyler replied in a lengthy, praiseful text.
Buell will play “Skin Suit” and songs off her other projects on Nov. 8 at Nashville venue the Basement. Das Damen, the Eighties alt-rock band led by Wallerstein, will perform their own set and also back up Buell. “A full-on rock, face-melting set,” Buell promises. “I just want to show women and people that rocking doesn’t have an age. It has an ability, it has an attitude, it has physicality, and either you either you got it or you don’t, dog.”
