While Just Words is indeed the title and title track of the viscerally honest, soul-penetratingly revealing and exceptionally well crafted new album from Ottawa roots singer/songwriter Lynne Hanson, it is a bit of a misnomer as to the overall message on this ambitious record, as it is for the artist herself – there is so much more going on behind those insightful words.
Seeking to chart a new musical course, Hanson approached this record in a different manner and perspective from pervious work, and also reached out to incorporate a more modern sonic landscape, with the addition of producer Jim Bryson.
The result is a collection of 11 songs that are still infused with the dark sentimentality and heartbreak which has become Hanson’s stock in trade thematically, and still imbued with her rootsy vocal approachability, but are nonetheless evolutionary in tone, topicality and tenor.
“I knew I wanted a different sound and that’s really why I chose to work with Jim Bryson as a producer, because I really felt that I had been licked into what I know and what I have always done. Doing the last LYNNeS record [Heartbreak Song for the Radio in 2018 alongside pal/collaborate Lynn Miles] and having Kevin Breit do his magic with the guitar in terms of that record, just for me to have been exposed to that, it kind of changed my writing in that I heard things a little differently and probably drew on things from a different place. So, I really wanted to keep that momentum moving forward from where I was sitting. I wanted that to continue,” she explained.
“I wanted to pair up with someone I know was going to hear things very, very differently and I felt also that I had the intention to write a different type of record at the same time. Even though I only had a couple of songs before I committed to Jim, I knew I was going in a different direction; I knew just from the few songs I already had. When you put all those things together, it’s no surprise that this album is a bit of a departure, but I think in a good way. It’s an organic growth for sure, but I have never been the kind of artist who wanted to stay where I am in terms of my creations. I wanted to grow and move forward, so I felt like instead of just trying to write songs that were different, I also wanted to get a sound that was different. And the best way to do that was to get somebody who was going to hear things differently than me.
“First of all, Jim has a more contemporary sense of sound. And it’s a very subtle thing sometimes, if you were to hear a song you might not be able to put your finger on it as a listener – I certainly can as the person who is the author of the song and the person who is involved in the production of the record. I know what we did, sometimes it’s these subtle little things and these little decisions of maybe using this kind of sound, or put this kind of a keyboard part on, or a sonic padding behind it, that just wasn’t present in my previous work. And, again, I think the songs themselves, as written, lent themselves to this kind of treatment. So, it was sort of a combination of those two things that kind of led us to where we are. I knew Jim was coming from a different place than me. His feet are more firmly planted in the indie scene and he has more of a sense of that sort of sonic reality. And it’s not where I come from, over the last 10 years, and the records I have been making. Honestly, I think I did start to go there with my last album, Uneven Ground but it was an incomplete thought; I didn’t really get there all the way. But with Just Words, I think I did.”
The title track is essentially about the power of words, especially their power to hurt, something that has become more visible and pandemic in the age of instant messaging and social media.
“I think it’s a very universal theme. There’s probably not a person out there who hasn’t been stung or hurt by words that were unkind at one point or another. Sometimes we can’t control all the things in our lives, but one thing we can control are the words we use with each other. I didn’t want to be preachy; I never wanted to be an artist telling people how to be and how to speak and what to believe. What I really wanted to do was create almost a cinematic situation where in certain movie frames people can see how in a different situation that these kinds of things can sting. And the production of the song was done in a very aggressive way, because I wanted to add a kind of fierceness to the message so that it was clear that this wasn’t something I was just trifling with, it was something that I really felt strongly about,” Hanson explained, adding that words have an elevated significance to her in her everyday life and her writing, since she considers herself in many ways to be a poet before being a singer/songwriter.
“For me, words are very important. It there’s a word in a song, I put it there on purpose. If there’s a word that’s missing, it’s intentional. So, there’s not a lot of fat in the lyrics of my songs, and yet there’s a lot of words. I just feel that the melodic hook, that to me is the easy part. But trying to say something in three and a half minutes is a challenge – to really say something that is going to mean something to the people who are listening. So, there is artfulness in used the title Just Words. It was tongue in cheek at the same time because it’s not about just words it’s about ALL the words.
“That said, I don’t think there are any messages that are mutually exclusive between the songs on the record. There are some common threads to each and every one of them. Clean Slate is about being a good neighbour. It’s about recognizing that the differences that we think we have with different people, ones that cause harm to us or cause unrest, a lot of times they are fabricated differences. I think we have a lot more in common with one another as people than we sometimes are willing to admit. Clean Slate is about putting aside those differences and just sort of recognizing that my position isn’t always right, and I need to listen and have a discussion with others and the world would be a better place. We’re definitely ready for more kindness and more tolerance, The world could just use a lot more gentleness, and that’s really what the song is about.”
Lollipops and Roses is sort of a metaphor for the things that comfort us in times of distress, and can represent memories, or soothing activities – whatever works.
“I was in Brooklyn and staying in an apartment and it was very hot that weekend, so everybody had their windows open. Even though people had these air conditioning units in their bedrooms, all the other windows would be open because you couldn’t keep the apartment cool enough. So, because all these windows were open, I could hear people arguing all night in the neighbourhood I was in. And there was a particularly heated argument that was going on between a man and woman, and I remember thinking to myself, ‘wow, those are some angry words.’ And all of a sudden, I could picture this movie and the back story of these people, even though I didn’t know what they were arguing about,” Hanson said.
“So, this is typically what happens with me as a songwriter, something catches my attention and even if there isn’t a full story there, I will create it with my imagination, and that’s what happened that night. And it’s Brooklyn right, so you can imagine that it’s a really busy city, it’s very loud and there’s a lot going on and I was walking the streets during the day and seeing a lot of people, and what was going on and it wasn’t hard to have a back story for this couple to pop into my head and come up with this song.
“The backstory is the idea that this character was living a very hard life, a very difficult life and there was a lot of poverty, a lot of people just getting by in the neighbourhood. So, I could picture this individual, and again it kind of goes back to that idea that they could use a little bit of sweetness in their life. The lollipops and roses thing just kind of stuck with me because, again, as I was walking along the streets there would be stands of roses and I just kept thinking ‘you’ve got these beautiful, sweet smelling roses and sweets all over the place, in the middle of absolute chaos and a lot of human pain.’”
The theme of heartbreak takes an interesting turn for the song Hemingway’s Songbird.
“I gave myself five weeks to write this record, which is not a lot of time. I always tell people that I am writing all the time, even if I am not working on a song, because I am a sponge, right? Things come in and they will just push up against a wall and then when I go to write, everything just kind of floods out. In this particular situation, I was very much stuck. I was sitting in front of a computer with my guitar and I was like, ‘dammit, I do not have a good idea.’ I just walked over to my bookshelf and I have a couple of Ernest Hemingway books and I started reading one of them, and then I imagined if Hemingway was dumped by a woman, which I am sure had happened in his life a few times,” Hanson said.
“I pictured him with a broken heart, and how that would be when his muse would be this woman that he was madly in love with who didn’t return his love. And, again, a lot of the songs I am writing, if I can see the movie of it in my head, I can write the song. So, I closed my eyes and I pictured Hemingway in a café, so the story is sort of part Hemingway’s heartbreak story and half my own, because half of the song and the sentiment is all me.”
Hanson rarely sits still for long and has been on the road since before the release of Just Words. A special album release show was held in her hometown of Ottawa on Feb. 21, and she is beginning a European tour on March 1 in the Netherlands, which will see her route through Germany, before a short series of shows back in Ontario at the end of March. After that, it’s back across the pond for a tour of the United Kingdom and then some U.S. shows in May. For more tour dates, information on Just Words and more, visit https://www.lynnehanson.com.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, ON, who has been writing about music and musicians for nearly 30 years. Besides his journalistic endeavours, he now works as a communications and marketing specialist. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com.
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