I love Kilkenny Roots. Not only is it in one of the nicest places, the shows and its atmosphere are spread out throughout the town. It’s big enough to have some great names each year, and small enough to be standing next to some of them while seeing someone else perform. This year, in the first weekend of May, one of those artists was Lizzie No, who also joined us at the Smithwicks Experience during the day to record Deadbeat, Silverado (combined with Kehlani’s Gangsta) and Aimee Mann’s Red Vines.

The candy store of Aimee Mann

The choice to cover Aimee Mann’s Red Vines came through collaboration with guitarist Will Greene, though sorting through Mann’s catalogue presented its own delightful challenge. “Sorting through her catalog felt like browsing a candy store; there are so many excellent Aimee Mann songs that it was hard to pick,” No reflects.

What draws them to Mann runs deeper than song selection. “Aimee Mann is one of my favorite living songwriters. Her stories feel lived-in because of her attention to detail both in the lyrics and in arrangement choices. And she has one of my favorite voices.”

The specific choice of Red Vines offered something more immediate, a chance for musical dialogue. “Red Vines gave us a chance to dial in a harp-guitar dialogue that was really fun.” But it’s Mann’s ability to capture private heartbreak that really hooks No: “I’m the only one who knows that Disneyland’s about to close’ hooks into my heart every time. What a perfect private little heartbreak. When I sing that lyric I imagine myself in the backseat of the car, looking out the window in the parking lot, moments before being disappointed.”

The real fascination begins where the myth meets reality.

There’s something about the way Lizzie No approaches a cover song; carefully excavating layers of meaning until she reaches something essential. When they recorded Kehlani’s Gangsta paired with No’s own Silverado for The Influences, they were not just choosing songs they liked. They were exploring the complex mythology of masculinity through the lens of women’s voices.

“Within the library of music written or performed by women, the gangsta holds similar symbolism to the cowboy, especially when he is the subject of romantic desire,” No explains. “He is a complex character just out of frame, whose magnetism derives from living in opposition to mainstream social norms. He represents the aspects of American masculinity from which our national myths are made.”

But for Lizzie No, the real fascination begins where the myth meets reality. “When we leave the world of lyrics and enter the real world, the outlaw is a human person. I’ve always been interested in those moments where the rubber meets the road when it comes to masculinity. Where do our aspirational ideas of what a man is conflict with what life requires of real, contemporary men who live in relationship, in community, in historical context? And is there any room left for romance?”

This intersection runs through their work like a thread, particularly visible in characters like Miss Freedomland from the concept album Halfsies. “I try to pay attention when a woman writer’s subjectivity interrupts outdated scripts about men in relationship,” Lizzie No notes. The pairing with Silverado feels intentional, this marks the first time she’s released a recording of the song. “And I’m glad people are hearing the version with a Kehlani sample up top.”

The puzzle pieces of language

Lizzie No’s approach to lyrics carries the precision of someone who genuinely loves language structure. “I appreciate when people really lean into the lyrics. I have always been interested in words, especially when they function as puzzle pieces for a secret purpose. Did you ever diagram sentences in school? I nerd out on that shit. If you think about authors like Ernest Hemingway or Ha Jin, they pack a lot of emotion and subtext into a very few words. I attempt to do that in my songs.”

This careful attention to craft extends to instrumental choices as well. The harp shapes not just the sound but the entire creative process. “When I write on the harp, the songs that come out are often meditative, song-poems more than pop-oriented songs. When you sing and play the harp at the same time, the vibrations happening between the harp leaning on your shoulder and breath moving through your chest can be really powerful.”

The physical relationship with the instrument demands a different approach to composition. “You have to balance your voice and the volume of the harp intuitively. You can’t come in with an idea of how the song is going to come out. The harp dictates the tone.”

Revolution and the inner garden

“I want people to feel more in the driver’s seat of their own lives. That’s what my favorite albums do for me; I listen to them in the first person and become capable of claiming my own story. I want people to put themselves in my shoes, with all their own experiences adding color and flavor.”

Lizzie No’s vision extends beyond individual transformation to collective action, though she sees the two as intimately connected. “One of the great mental violences of living in a country built by slave labor is the lie that things have always been done this way, and that our cultural surroundings are a neutral background against which we make individual choices. We have so naturalized capitalism in our lives that we rarely notice it.”

The path forward, in No’s view, requires both inner work and outer rebellion. “It takes work to notice and rebel against the ways in which the empire has implanted itself in our bodies and our relationships. The process of developing intuition, then, is the center of a spiral whose outer arm is revolution. As we cultivate our inner emotional gardens, the fruits of collective action can grow.” Music becomes the catalyst in this process. “A song can catalyze this questioning. A great song translates sensation into awareness into action.”

Learning from the other side

Lizzie No’s work hosting interviews for the Basic Folk podcast has taught them something fundamental about artistic practice. “The greatest lesson Basic Folk has taught me is that there are as many ways of making folk music as there are human beings on earth. No two artists share the same approach to writing and arranging songs, making records, touring, connecting with fans, and so on. Being a musician is a job, but there is no hard-and-fast job description.”

This understanding of music’s infinite possibilities fuels No’s own artistic freedom. When asked what she wants people to understand about her work, her answer carries the weight of someone who has found their purpose: “I want to be known as a free woman making art while the empire falls. More than anything else in my life, songwriting is my way of having a say in how the world is going. I want it to be useful to revolutionaries and to children.”

Photos

Keep watching

Thank you for watching and enjoying this session. You’ll probably like some other sessions from The Influences’ archive too, like these earlier ones we filmed at TakeRoot festival.

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