"I’m not sure whether I even slept / my mind was wrapped up all around you / either way I guess..."
The cherished blossoming lovestruck recollections of "Katie" by Nashville artist / singer songwriter Liv Greene, reaches to the sky in astonishing moving ways, folk rustic, tactile, textured like Greene's vocal countenance that has a unique porch country aesthetic. The song exists like a classic piece of work on Green's album "Deep Feeler" that dropped in October via Free Dirt Records (Willi Carlisle, Jake Blount).
"Katie" is a stunner of a song. From the plucky upfront sinewy guitar notes and subtle fiddle embellishments that had me feeling a kind of Gillian Welch, circa "Time (The Revelator)" album (2001) tug, Green's special vocal quality is on full display. I mean, you cannot help but fall in love with the emotional lilt with hints of country yelps and yodels. When her voice hits those high registers as punctuations to heart aches and longing it feels like a teary eyed full embrace.
Her words are as special as her voice.
either way I guess
either way I’m gettin greedy
wishing I had more
just a minute longer
before you’re even out the door
to ride home on your bike
I think I’m gonna like you around
for whatever time you’ve found for me"
"I’m not sure whether I even slept
my mind was wrapped up all around youeither way I guess
either way I’m gettin greedy
wishing I had more
just a minute longer
before you’re even out the door
to ride home on your bike
I think I’m gonna like you around
for whatever time you’ve found for me"
Wow...
About "Katie," Greene says, “This came out of a relationship that wasn’t my first queer love experience, but it was my first time allowing it to not be a bad thing. It comes from a place of tenderness––of allowing yourself to feel those romantic feelings and really revel in them.”
From Liner Notes (bracketed):
https://open.spotify.com/artist/2UltodJ8HNFM8hNpVyD5Ae
https://www.instagram.com/liv_greene_/
https://www.tiktok.com/@livgreene
https://www.facebook.com/livgreenemusic
https://x.com/liv_greene_
https://music.apple.com/us/artist/liv-greene/1160467657
["Katie" is the newest single off Nashville artist Liv Greene's upcoming album Deep Feeler, which is due out October 18 via Free Dirt Records (Willi Carlisle, Jake Blount). Feminine, queer, and defiant, the 10-track set is a vulnerable snapshot of hard-won self-acceptance, produced by Greene in collaboration with GRAMMY Award-winning engineer Matt Andrews (Dawes, Trisha Yearwood, Gillian Welch) and a few contributions from GRAMMY Award-winning artist Sarah Jarosz.]
I have not yet explored "Deep Feeler" but, through my very messy life, I will find my way to it. I hope you do to.
[“I used to write fiction, primarily––I don’t think any of my early songs were from a place of actual heartbreak,” Greene says. “This record is completely autobiographical. For people who are in a period of life when words can inspire them to come to acceptance, I hope it helps. For others, I hope they can find comfort in just the sound of the music. These songs are for anyone.”]
-Robb Donker Curtius
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM
https://open.spotify.com/artist/2UltodJ8HNFM8hNpVyD5Ae
https://www.instagram.com/liv_greene_/
https://www.tiktok.com/@livgreene
https://www.facebook.com/livgreenemusic
https://x.com/liv_greene_
https://music.apple.com/us/artist/liv-greene/1160467657
(full liner notes)
Liv Greene isn’t running from herself anymore. She has pried herself open and let real longing, frustration, and love break free. Then, she put it all in a song. “For a long time, writing was an escape from myself,” Greene says. “I was not okay with who I was. I was trying not to think about myself.” She pauses, then explains, “These songs are a healing or reframing of my relationship with the craft.”
Greene is home in East Nashville, talking about Deep Feeler, her upcoming sophomore album. The smart collection of lilting melodies and poignant storytelling is a vulnerable snapshot of hard-won self-acceptance. It’s feminine, queer, and defiant. It’s also the official arrival of Liv Greene, as she wants the world to know her.
“This record captures me in the midst of a shift, a change in how I view my place in the world,” Greene says. “Now, rather than an escape from myself, songwriting is communion with myself.”
Just 24 years old at the time, Greene produced Deep Feeler herself, in collaboration with GRAMMY Award-winning engineer Matt Andrews (Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings, O Brother, Where Art Thou?). Greene took her time. "There were lots of points in the process where it could have been done,” she says. “The vision for it changed shape a bunch of times, but the commitment to trying to get the songs right––the production of each individual song––was always at the center, alongside keeping the guitar and voice as the record’s heartbeat.”
The result is 10 songs that transform the personal into the universal. Greene’s vocals and guitar are the album’s anchor, just as she wanted. And oh, that voice: Sometimes serene like a deep, cool pool, then it breaks, like a wave crashing on a rock. It’s unsettling and peaceful, all at once. Greene called on friends––her “dream rhythm section,” made up of upright bassist Hazel Royer and drummer Dominic Billett. The team tracked live to tape at Woodland Sound Studios in Nashville, and as the songs came, Greene realized she still wanted more: GRAMMY Award-winner Sarah Jarosz on mandolin and harmonies, Elise Leavy on accordion and piano, and Jack Schneider (Vince Gill) on electric guitar and as a trusted sounding board. Then pedal steel, organ, fiddle, and more came in for cameos, all in the service of the song.
“I’m aware I’m a liar,” Greene sings in the very first line of the album’s title track. The confession and warning crackles in the immediate pause after Greene utters it. Then, she continues with heartbreaking clarity: “Always lying to myself about my expectations.” This self-awareness, this embracing of imperfection, appears throughout the record as Greene expertly straddles the line between showcasing wisdom far beyond her years and remaining relatable to any mid-twenties woman trying to live authentically in a world that doesn’t always make doing so easy. “I’d been toying with the idea of a song that’s kind of like a manifesto: Like, yeah, I know I’m a little delusional and overly sensitive. I have relational trauma. I fall really hard and get hurt all the time because of it,” Greene explains. “But I am who I am, and I’m proud of that. I am proud of how deeply I feel things.”
Building line upon vivid line of little sweet things, album standout “Flowers” is a tender push for self-reliance. “I’d just gone through a breakup, and I hadn’t been single for most of my teens or adult life,” Greene says. “I was trying to figure out how to love myself. I remember after writing it, feeling like I didn’t believe it yet––I wasn’t there yet. I was still struggling to show myself love and feel fine on my own. So it was almost like a mission statement: I need to learn how to love myself and not need anyone to do that for me.” The song is a masterpiece.
A favorite of Greene’s to play live, “Katie” is a love song rooted in permission to just be. “This came out of a relationship that wasn’t my first queer love experience, but it was my first time allowing it to not be a bad thing,” she says. “It comes from a place of tenderness––of allowing yourself to feel those romantic feelings and really revel in them.”
With percussive guitar and righteous vocals, “You Were Never Mine” is permission to be angry. “I wrote it in late summer, sitting in my backyard with the bugs as the sun set. It was my first summer in Tennessee, and I had an old guitar with dead strings,” Greene remembers. “I was playing some Jaimie Wyatt for myself, with a galloping guitar part––and I realized I felt really pissed off. So I started improvising that groove in a minor key. It’s an old thought we’ve all had: It’s one thing to hear something, and it’s another to believe it. That whole song is a mantra––a nursery rhyme, repeated until you get to a point where you actually believe it: This was never a real thing. It’s time to let go. This person was never actually available to you.”
Album closer “I Can Be Grateful” is a stunner––and one of the songs Greene is most proud of writing. Wielding only her voice and guitar, she holds space for traditionally opposing emotions and realities to coexist, simultaneously: “I can be grateful, and still mad / I can be happy and still sad.” By granting herself the permission to feel, she has given us that same permission, too. “I used to write fiction, primarily––I don’t think any of my early songs were from a place of actual heartbreak,” she says. “This record is completely autobiographical. For people who are in a period of life when words can inspire them to come to acceptance, I hope it helps. For others, I hope they can find comfort in just the sound of the music. These songs are for anyone.”
Liv Greene isn’t running from herself anymore. She has pried herself open and let real longing, frustration, and love break free. Then, she put it all in a song. “For a long time, writing was an escape from myself,” Greene says. “I was not okay with who I was. I was trying not to think about myself.” She pauses, then explains, “These songs are a healing or reframing of my relationship with the craft.”
Greene is home in East Nashville, talking about Deep Feeler, her upcoming sophomore album. The smart collection of lilting melodies and poignant storytelling is a vulnerable snapshot of hard-won self-acceptance. It’s feminine, queer, and defiant. It’s also the official arrival of Liv Greene, as she wants the world to know her.
“This record captures me in the midst of a shift, a change in how I view my place in the world,” Greene says. “Now, rather than an escape from myself, songwriting is communion with myself.”
Just 24 years old at the time, Greene produced Deep Feeler herself, in collaboration with GRAMMY Award-winning engineer Matt Andrews (Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings, O Brother, Where Art Thou?). Greene took her time. "There were lots of points in the process where it could have been done,” she says. “The vision for it changed shape a bunch of times, but the commitment to trying to get the songs right––the production of each individual song––was always at the center, alongside keeping the guitar and voice as the record’s heartbeat.”
The result is 10 songs that transform the personal into the universal. Greene’s vocals and guitar are the album’s anchor, just as she wanted. And oh, that voice: Sometimes serene like a deep, cool pool, then it breaks, like a wave crashing on a rock. It’s unsettling and peaceful, all at once. Greene called on friends––her “dream rhythm section,” made up of upright bassist Hazel Royer and drummer Dominic Billett. The team tracked live to tape at Woodland Sound Studios in Nashville, and as the songs came, Greene realized she still wanted more: GRAMMY Award-winner Sarah Jarosz on mandolin and harmonies, Elise Leavy on accordion and piano, and Jack Schneider (Vince Gill) on electric guitar and as a trusted sounding board. Then pedal steel, organ, fiddle, and more came in for cameos, all in the service of the song.
“I’m aware I’m a liar,” Greene sings in the very first line of the album’s title track. The confession and warning crackles in the immediate pause after Greene utters it. Then, she continues with heartbreaking clarity: “Always lying to myself about my expectations.” This self-awareness, this embracing of imperfection, appears throughout the record as Greene expertly straddles the line between showcasing wisdom far beyond her years and remaining relatable to any mid-twenties woman trying to live authentically in a world that doesn’t always make doing so easy. “I’d been toying with the idea of a song that’s kind of like a manifesto: Like, yeah, I know I’m a little delusional and overly sensitive. I have relational trauma. I fall really hard and get hurt all the time because of it,” Greene explains. “But I am who I am, and I’m proud of that. I am proud of how deeply I feel things.”
Building line upon vivid line of little sweet things, album standout “Flowers” is a tender push for self-reliance. “I’d just gone through a breakup, and I hadn’t been single for most of my teens or adult life,” Greene says. “I was trying to figure out how to love myself. I remember after writing it, feeling like I didn’t believe it yet––I wasn’t there yet. I was still struggling to show myself love and feel fine on my own. So it was almost like a mission statement: I need to learn how to love myself and not need anyone to do that for me.” The song is a masterpiece.
A favorite of Greene’s to play live, “Katie” is a love song rooted in permission to just be. “This came out of a relationship that wasn’t my first queer love experience, but it was my first time allowing it to not be a bad thing,” she says. “It comes from a place of tenderness––of allowing yourself to feel those romantic feelings and really revel in them.”
With percussive guitar and righteous vocals, “You Were Never Mine” is permission to be angry. “I wrote it in late summer, sitting in my backyard with the bugs as the sun set. It was my first summer in Tennessee, and I had an old guitar with dead strings,” Greene remembers. “I was playing some Jaimie Wyatt for myself, with a galloping guitar part––and I realized I felt really pissed off. So I started improvising that groove in a minor key. It’s an old thought we’ve all had: It’s one thing to hear something, and it’s another to believe it. That whole song is a mantra––a nursery rhyme, repeated until you get to a point where you actually believe it: This was never a real thing. It’s time to let go. This person was never actually available to you.”
Album closer “I Can Be Grateful” is a stunner––and one of the songs Greene is most proud of writing. Wielding only her voice and guitar, she holds space for traditionally opposing emotions and realities to coexist, simultaneously: “I can be grateful, and still mad / I can be happy and still sad.” By granting herself the permission to feel, she has given us that same permission, too. “I used to write fiction, primarily––I don’t think any of my early songs were from a place of actual heartbreak,” she says. “This record is completely autobiographical. For people who are in a period of life when words can inspire them to come to acceptance, I hope it helps. For others, I hope they can find comfort in just the sound of the music. These songs are for anyone.”
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