Lydia Lovelace is a songwriter unlike any other working in music today. No one else would bluntly begin a song titled “Really Wanna See You” with “I was just thinking about you and how you got married last June, I wonder how that worked out for you,” before working in lines about partying that leaves the listener wondering if the sentimentality is fueled by lust, cocaine blues or both. “To Love Somebody” finds Lovelace at a crossroads advising a lover, “I never wanted you to be mine, at least not all the time.” It’s a restless honestly that finds Lovelace living less like a woman in a man’s world and more like an untamed creature in a society hopelessly domesticated. “Verlaine Shot Rimbaud” turns the literary lover’s spat into an idealized murder-suicide. (The real life incident resulted in only superficial wounds.) “Chris Isaak” is a humorous look at a childhood crush carry too far into adulthood. Her view of love is skewed so far off the expected norm that it seems only right that she covers Tracy Ullman’s classic anthem of settling for less, “They Don’t Know.” Of course her songs are never just about love. In fact she sings less about the act of love and more about the struggle to fit the emotion and the people who inspire it into an already cluttered and messy life. “Everything is Gone” is a plaintive song that finds her looking at the myriad tiny little issues that gnaw away at life and happiness like a school of ravenous piranhas. When she sings “Please don’t take all the land away because I need that now, when I need someplace to lose my mind, and please stop telling me to turn it down because it ain’t that loud” a listener can almost see her rubbing her temples to ward off the impending headache.
Lydia Lovelace writes songs less about broken people than songs about messy people. The people in her songs function, in their own fashion, and are more often perplexed than damaged by the stuff that life and love throw their way. Bars, booze and other mind altering substances and dingy places are less escapes and more places to go to scare up a little fun. In Lovelace’s world escape is not a desired outcome because life is interesting enough. Somewhere Else is another roaring good time, hallmarked by Lovelace’s biting wit and raw honesty.
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