Lauren Scott-Phillips and the moving love light of 'Handsome Woman' (Official Video)

 

photo by Aron Meinhardt


Listening to the rustic, acoustic beauty of 'Handsome Woman' by Los Angeles singer-songwriter Lauren Scott-Phillips I am struck by the sheer stripped down beauty of it all. Lauren embodies the track with a seemingly natural ability to structure melodies that make you hear things that aren't there. Yeah, really. I have listened to this song dozen's of times and when the chorus sweeps in I hear added layers of orchestrations wrap around Lauren's voice. Lauren's down to earth elegant folk vocal aesthetic, like a cross generational amalgam of artists like Judy Collins and Gillian Welch, slips easily around you no matter what kind of music you are into. 

Lauren wrote 'Handsome Woman' as a loving ode to her wife 'subtly challenging the traditional language used to describe femininity' and she shares:

 “My wife is very feminine, and I’m pretty feminine too, but I have some masculine traits, and I really just didn’t know how I wanted to be described. I just want to normalize the idea that whoever you want to be, that’s who you should be."

The Official Video for 'Handsome Woman' that looks incredibly filmic is amazing, tender, moving and as press notes indicate:

[Directed by Aron Meinhardt, the video features footage of private moments between Scott-Phillips and her wife—at eight months pregnant—capturing the love and companionship of a new family that inspired Scott-Phillips to write the track. “I wanted the video to be really authentically LGBTQ-focused, because that’s just who I am,” says Scott-Phillips. “If you’re an artist and you’re writing about your life, I think it's important to really broadcast who you are.”]

For me, 'Handsome Woman' as much as it is a gorgeous rustic love song it is also a political song, something folk songs have done ever since Woody Guthrie placed the words "This machine kills fascists" on his acoustic guitar in 1943. As Christian Nationalist are working to severe the much needed moral barrier between Church and State and transform American into a theocracy songs that push back in subtle or hard ways are important. As the GOP are wanting to place their knees on the neck of women and treat them like chattel (once again) and want to push back against LGBTQ rights it scares me. Same sex marriages have only been legal since 2014 and there are powerful forces that want to go backwards to "make America great again". Songs like 'Handsome Woman' are important reminders of what love is and what we should all aspire to be, not progressive, not leftist, just be who we are free from all the fucking haters. 

-Robb Donker Curtius

THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM - PRESS NOTES:

https://www.facebook.com/laurenphillipsmusic

https://open.spotify.com/artist/55wAQsrsbE7vsyU1ZJbWKA

https://www.youtube.com/user/LaurenPhillipsMusic

https://www.instagram.com/laurenscottphillips/


Los Angeles singer-songwriter Lauren Scott-Phillips has been featured at American Songwriter, Americana UK, Rolling Stone India, and has worked with Grammy nominated producer Brian West (Nelly Furtado, Any Grammer, Maroon 5). As a lesbian, woman, wife, and new mother, her latest single, "Handsome Woman," an ode to her wife, subtly challenges the traditional language used to describe femininity.

Lauren Scott-Phillips, singer songwriter, musician, folk, acoustic, folk indie, rustic, stripped down, love song, 'Handsome Woman' (Official Video), LGBTQ, storytelling, moving melodies,