FEATURE:
Revisiting…
Lola Kirke – Lady for Sale
_________
AS her new E.P…
PHOTO CREDIT: Ward & Kweskin
comes out soon, I wanted to look back at Lola Kirke’s 2022 album, Lady for Sale. Country Curious is going to be an exiting new project from an artist not known and played as much. Released in April 2022, Lady for Sale is a terrific album that more people should know about. Before ending with a review for the amazing Lady for Sale, there are a couple of interviews that I want to come to. Rolling Stone spoke with an artist embracing and utilising the drama of Country for her 2022 album. An acclaimed actor herself, Lola Kirke employs and deploys her incredible talents and emotional range through the album. It is a remarkable work that more people should listen to:
“WHEN SHE WAS an infant, Lola Kirke had a nurse who would sing Patsy Cline’s “Crazy” to her as a soothing gesture. She would later encounter the song in a new way in Jumpin’ Jim’s Ukulele Country music book, which she received as a teenager learning to play the ukulele.
“It was my first instrument, because I’m a white girl who grew up in the mid-2000s — we all got ukuleles,” Kirke jokes during a Zoom call with Rolling Stone. The singer-actress, who’s starred in Mozart in the Jungle and Gone Girl, is currently in New York, but has also been spending long stretches in Nashville over the last couple of years.
Kirke’s time in Nashville and deepening interest in country music is reflected in her new album Lady for Sale, which arrives this week via Third Man Records. Rather than a slick country-pop affair or sparse singer-songwriter project, Lady for Sale finds a third path, one where the aesthetics of Eighties country and synth-pop collide in tightly written, clever songs. There is the icy melodic flourish in the chorus of “Broken Families,” which features Courtney Marie Andrews, and the softer palette of steel and guitar that undergirds “Pink Sky,” and then there’s the Madonna-meets-the-Judds bounce of “Better than Any Drug.” Keen music listeners will recognize some of the reference points, but they’re also employed as ways for Kirke to frame her smart examinations of unhealthy relationships and show-business pitfalls.
“We wanted to make archetypal Eighties, Nineties country music,” says Kirke, the daughter of Free and Bad Company drummer Simon Kirke. “Through that, you would be like, ‘Oh, that’s what I’m entering into,’ and then get to these more complex ideas through what might seem like a simple exterior.”
You grew up in a family of musicians. Your dad is a well-known rock drummer. What spurred your interest in country music?
I think I was just drawn to how easy the songs were initially because there were three chords or whatever. Literally, I was like, “Oh, I can play these.” And through that ease, discovered a deeper love of country music. Also, there’s a lot of parallels with being an actress and being a country singer or singing country. So many of the women in country music, they’re telling these stories and embodying characters and also wearing costumes in a really incredible way. There was all this room for drama within country that was really exciting to me as an actor.
It’s almost like doing drag in some instances, when you think about Dolly Parton or Reba McEntire. The presentation is very dramatic and campy.
It’s great! And that is actually a greater way that you can be truthful. It’s this concept of, through the mask, you can reveal the truth. And I think that there’s something so earnest and authentic about the songs that these women who are in drag, as we’re saying, I’m so moved by so much of this music. That really appealed to me.
Your new album Lady for Sale nods to the neon hues and synth sounds of the Eighties, with touches of disco in the mix. It’s very different than your previous album Heart Head West, which had a dreamy, shimmering quality. When did the transition start to happen between those sounds?
A lot of it really started with Austin Jenkins [White Denim], who produced and co-wrote the record with me. He reflected that I’m actually a lot more fun than I’ve ever really let myself be in music, and I was like, “Huh, that’s true.” I spent a lot of time at the beginning of my music career trying to appear cool to other women, my peers — earnest and cool and serious and I’m just really not that. It wasn’t authentic to me. I also, over the course of the pandemic, really got interested in the Judds and Tanya Tucker and that period of music, which I really wasn’t familiar with prior to then, because growing up in New York City, that’s not really what I heard. I think Faith Hill and Shania made it onto the radio where I grew up, but country radio other than that was just nonexistent to me. So hearing Rosanne Cash’s Seven Year Ache and a bunch of other music of that time, I was just opened up to a new world.
Many people have an idealized version of what it’s like coming to Nashville. How did your experience compare to what you imagined?
I had kind of first gotten to know Nashville through the movie Nashville, the Robert Altman film, which was one of my favorite movies growing up. And then The Thing Called Love, the Peter Bogdanovich movie that was River Phoenix’s last, which is all about songwriters. And when I moved to Nashville, I fell in love with the show Nashville, became so obsessed I would have dreams about the characters, which was funny because I was very much watching it during lockdown. I’ve heard people say “Oh, people started moving here because they loved that show so much.” And now it’s not as local as it once was. But it comes pretty close to what I dreamed of it being. I also think that as I get older, I see that the world as I imagined it would be when I was older just doesn’t exist. I remember going to San Francisco and being like, “And at any moment Jerry Garcia will round the corner,” and it was actually “there’s a Google Bus.” I don’t think this local quality that the world once had exists in quite the same way. But I do think that Nashville, as a smaller city, kind of keeps that alive”.
1883 Magazine spoke with the British-born, U.S.-based actor-musician in 2022. I first heard Lady for Sale then. I was instantly struck by it. I am dipping into the album now, excited to hear new music from Lola Kirke. Her latest single, My House, is among her best releases. This is a tremendous artist that you need to get behind and listen to. Such a remarkable talent:
“It might seem surprising for a New Yorker born in England to turn to country music to express herself, but the longer you talk to Kirke, the more it makes sense. The Mistress America and Mozart in the Jungle actress grew up in a household full to bursting with creatives (her father is a drummer, her siblings are painters, actors and musicians), and her family relocated to the States when she was five years of age. She grew up in “the wild West Village” of Manhattan, she jokes, and as the only person in the family with an American accent, Kirke always felt somewhat of a comfortable outsider. “I think there was a great safety for me in having an American accent when everyone else in my family didn’t,” she says.
She went through a brief punk phase in her teens in an attempt to carve out more of her own identity, but evidently, it didn’t stick. “I could have played punk music, because it’s kind of easy, but I was not cool enough to play punk,” she laughs.
“My sister (Jemima, a visual artist and actress known for her work in Lena Dunham’s Girls), used to dress me for school. Her best friend at the time was this actress Paz de la Huerta, and Paz was a real punk ― she had those Sid Vicious creeper shoes,” Kirke recalls. “I wanted to be one because I thought it was colourful and pretty. When I reflect back on how I felt in high school, I think I was very easy to make fun of, and I think that because nobody else really liked it, punk felt like a safe place for me to live and something to call my own.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Sara-Anne Waggoner
Kirke was raised on rock and roll — the first song she remembers loving is Led Zeppelin’s ‘Since I’ve Been Loving You’. “I was asleep in the backseat of my parents’ car, and the song actually woke me up. It sounded like somebody had broken something open,” she recalls. But, at least for now, Kirke’s home is pedal steels, slide guitars, three chords and the truth. Even if she invokes the latter cliché with more than a hint of self-deprecation. “Actually, I saw this meme the other day that was like, ‘three chords and fucking lies!,’” she says.
“There’s an earnestness about country music that I really connect to. The country music I’m listening to now, the 80s and 90s stuff that is so referenced on this record, is so exciting to me. I feel glad I discovered it when I did, because if I had listened to it growing up, I maybe wouldn’t be so impressed. There’s something about the slickness, and expertise. The other thing about country music,” she adds, “is that you can’t just make a country song. It’s so structured! Your choruses better fucking pay off, and your verses had better support them in the most cheeky, witty, concise way. It’s funny to me when people put a pedal steel on a track and are like ‘it’s a country song!’ It’s not.”
She talks about country music like a kid in a candy store, all wide eyes and wonder, marveling at every detail. She talks about acting that way, too, and there’s a huge parallel between her choices as a musician and an actor. “When I look at the women in country, there’s a real space for performance in the genre. Those women ― the Loretta Lynns and Tammy Wynettes ― are such great actresses. There’s a lot of story-telling in country,” she says, adding: “Or Dolly Parton! You don’t know anything about her home life! She wears a wig!”
PHOTO CREDIT: Sara-Anne Waggoner
Lady For Sale is certainly a partial experiment in persona for Kirke. It’s hyper-stylized, and each song seems to have a distinct character ― so much so that one could almost call it a concept album. “There’s definitely a mask element to it,” Kirke explains. “I am able to live more truthfully through the mask, and I really appreciated finding the character of Lola.” Whiplashing between untethered, fun country-pop and mournful modern melodies, Kirke explores everything from loving and longing to feminine sexuality and desire, with a breathy voice and absolutely no restraint.
Despite all the characters that Kirke brings to the album, Lady For Sale has also been a vehicle for self-discovery for her. It’s Lola, playing versions of herself. She’s still acting, but she’s using a different medium, and she’s certainly no longer interested in succumbing to the pressure of conformity, though it took writing this record for her to understand that. “There’s been a tremendous amount of getting to know myself and my instrument, so to speak. I’m typically quite a warm, earnest and jovial person. I mean, I’m also a crazy bitch,” she smirks. “But I’m not a sad person. And I think there was a trend with girls my age to be really sad with a guitar.”
Does she ever see herself prioritizing one career over another?
“This album cycle has really been eye-opening, in terms of choosing to involve myself in two of the most toxic industries that exist,” Kirke says. “I have a true passion for both of these crafts. I love singing, and writing songs, but I also love acting, and being on set. There was a spiritual beatdown that certainly happened while putting this record out. When I get out of touch with whatever it is I really love about the record, performing and touring, it can feel really confusing.” The expectation that artists should be offering themselves up as commodities over social media is a bitter pill”.
There were some really positive reviews for Lady for Sale. One of those albums I think passed some by, do take some time and revisit this gem from Lola Kirke. In their impassioned review, The Line of Best Fit noted how Lady for Sale is a confident follow-up from her 2019 debut, Heart Head West. Produced by Austin Jenkins, Lady for Sale is a wonderful listen. You can buy the album. It is an album released whilst we were still in the grip of the COVID-19 pandemic. For many, Lady for Sale provided a lot of comfort and release. With some incredible tour dates around the U.S., there are going to be fans that hope Lola Kirke comes to the U.K. at some point to play. She is a magnificent artist who has this very loyal and loving fanbase:
“This rebrand away from her excellent 2019 debut Heart Head West – which presented itself as more subdued with a rocking ’n’ rolling tint – is in the name of embracing self and allowing it to shine bright.
Amongst her fresh recipe of syrupy country come tales of romance lost and found. It’s undeniable that Kirke is here to have fun with her second outing Lady For Sale, yet roots it deep in the sticky feelings which come with relationships and life.
Throughout, she's toying vibrantly with empowerment be it through its exterior world in the form a workout video (“Lady For Sale”) to just embracing being unashamedly human. Kirke is pulling no punches in living life in the creative arts (Kirke also acts), including references to the OnlyFans business model being akin to the music industry and joining the content churn to be a musician.
Delectable chorus after delectable chorus soars above all else. With the melodies doing their best to push their luck – toeing the line between infectious and abrasive, it's this swinging energy under which Lady For Sale thrives. Indeed, this isn’t an album created to lay low, it begs for attention, and once you’re in its sights, it’s impossible not to do so.
Not only embracing herself but all the joy of life, each gem in the Nudie suit Lady For Sale shines bright with a different message, some darker than others. Opener “Broken Families”, featuring Courtney Marie Andrews, breaks down the familial toxicity that leads to troubled relationships. The titular track opens with the bar-room toilet graffiti influenced lyrical A-bomb “Weed is proof of God” before winding its way through the lacking respect and putting on fronts to get by in order to achieve dreams. The lushly subdued “Pink Sky”, which promises “there’s no rush / no rush / he’s howling at the moon", proves it doesn’t have to be all bright and shiny – sometimes, things need to get real for a second to make sure the train stays on the tracks.
Lyrically, Kirke moves into the top tier of writers. Even references to alien conspiracy theories from questionable lovers who take the nihilistic quote "fuck the world" a little too seriously on "The Crime" deliver a kick and punch before a kiss and a wink.
“Stay Drunk” avoids dealing with the consequences of actions, while the ‘80s call-back “Better Than Any Drug” ensures those actions keep you coming back for more with an exhaustive lyrical wink-and-smile run the Class-A list. Undoubtedly life is about seizing the day, and in the trickles of pedal steel and glowing synths, on Lady For Sale Lola Kirke encourages the exploration of mistakes while knowing that you only live once, so have some fun with it, yeah?”.
An album that I feel did not get all of the attention and focus it warranted back in 2022, Lady for Sale is the latest album from the stunning Lola Kirke. The Country Curious E.P. has been announced. It will be another important chapter from one of the music world’s most distinct talents. I really love Lady for Sale, so I wanted to recommend it here. If you have not heard the album, I would suggest you take a little time out and…
DIVE right in.