Singer-songwriter Lila Blue has such an inquisitive and innate talent for music that it exudes in her lyrics stemming from her unique personality. Lila is currently based in New York City after moving there from San Francisco in 2011. She is also a theatrical composer and multi-instrumentalist. There’s little that she can’t do. Her music carries the influences of Regina Spektor, Ani DeFranco, Joni Mitchell, and Fiona Apple. Her gifted music is prolific, and she has released two albums and an EP, along with her upcoming set, Leave Me Be, to be released soon. Her music has even been used in numerous theatrical production and filmed entertainment, and has starred in the Bay Area rock opera, Weightless, based on a story from Ovid’s “Metamorphosis.”
With her new single, “The Dead,” Lila hauntingly sings along with the low chords of a cello, making this single even more ethereal, and the song carries Lila’s voice in an otherworldly manner. In the music video accompanying “The Dead,” Lila is seen inside a rowboat, singing her melody to the sky, even as water begins to fill the boat. The song asks many questions to its listener, although the question to be asked is “she a traveler on her way to the next life, or a spectral wanderer forever seeking peace?” (Hip Video Promo). In our discussion, Lila talks about which of her deep loves of music came first, experimenting with multiple genres, her latest single and music video for “The Dead” and the story behind it, how she’s creatively coping with quarantine, along with her fun music and entertainment favorites.
You’re multi-talented in all things musical and instrumental, signifying your deep love of music. Which love came first, the music or the instruments, or was it a combination?
Lila Blue: It actually started with the words. I played piano until I was seven, but quit because apparently I “had lost all joy for the craft” (little Lila truly knew how to up the theatrics). In third grade, I started writing poetry, and something in me felt like it was able to settle. I no longer had to hold in everything that was turbulent or messy, and I could make something that was tangible and could be creatively understood. But in cracking open for others in that way, it started to feel a bit too skinless. So, about a year later I picked up the ukulele and that wed my poetry to music. Music started as a vehicle of safety, but over the years, my love for it and the container each instrument can act as has begun to match my love for words.
You like to experiment with multiple genres. Do you have a particular one that you always like to experiment with time and again?
Lila: When I’m writing, I tend to not focus on genre at all. I know that in general, I lean toward the role of the Sad Folk Girl (trademark pending), but due to the variety of music I listen to, fragments of each genre seem to always find their way in subconsciously. I am a huge lover of Celtic traditional music, which I feel influences my lyrical structures and narratives. But instrumentally, the concept of tying down to a single genre feels a tad bit confining.
I love your ambition! Not only have you released two albums, but also an EP, and have worked in a few theater productions. What do you enjoy the most about each of these creative projects?
Lila: Thank you very much! I feel what I truly enjoy is the creative collaborative relationships I’ve been able to make over this past decade. The people I’ve gotten to work with have shown me the paths one can take in this realm, and as a sixth-grader trying to navigate the music and theatre world (as well as now being twenty years old), GOOD GOD does community help. I also feel like I’m my most honest and satiated self when creating. I’m able to tap into the ethereal and ugly parts of myself and create with others who are striving to do the same. It’s a gift that I definitely don’t take for granted.
You debated releasing your latest single,” The Dead,” due to current events surrounding COVID-19. Why did you feel this way, and what ultimately led you to release it now?
Lila: Due to the fact that death and loss are permeating everyone’s lives in one way or another, I was concerned that a song called “The Dead” would come across as some flaccid attempt to try and heal what is an active wound, which is the opposite of the song’s intention. It’s a song of acceptance, and it’s one that has helped me to grieve in the past for the ones who have left my life.
I decided to release it for this exact reason because once one sits inside the song, a forced and measly attempt at making people heal is the last thing on their mind. And people need containers to grieve within right now, and as a musician, the container I can give is my songs.
Can you share with us the story behind “The Dead”?
Lila: In the span of two years, I lost a dear friend and a grandmother in very sudden and violent ways. Around the same time, I had started a project to work with James Joyce’s words to make a songbook of the short stories in Dubliners. When I hit the final story in the novel, I found myself in the middle of a panic attack. To regulate my breathing, I started to sing, and out came “The Dead”.
I love that the video’s simple mechanism focusing on you inside a rowboat evokes such vivid imagery and emotes many emotions. What was filming it like for you?
Lila: Thank you, ever since we started recording, I’d had this image of the song of my body in the hull of a boat slowly filling with water. And that image was aided into bloom by the incredible director Joanna Haigood, and the astounding eyes Peter and Albert Strietmann . The main component I remember is the calm the crew brought to the set and the god d*** cold! We shot it in Northern California (where I’m from), in early January. Trying to look graceful and ethereal slowly lowering one’s body into a cold pool of boat-water is definitely not an easy feat, but I’m no quitter. The second “underworld” environment was much warmer, thank god. I was rewarded with the equivalent of a boat hot-tub. But the calm of the crew and the absolute joy bringing this image I’d had for two years in my brain to life were definitely the highlights.
How are you coping creatively with quarantine?
Lila: Initially, I was not doing great. I had all these judges telling me that I needed to push for the creative energy, that now was the time to make beautiful things. But, since settling in, I’ve realized that that block was there for a reason much deeper than the burnout of working while in college. I had built this mental corral around what I could make, and what was and wasn’t honest work, and when I started to take that down, things shifted. I’ve now made a few songs I’m so proud of, cause there’s not a single ounce of bullshit to be found within them.
