Jenny Lewis and the Art of Writing About Human Nature

Ever since her first solo LP, 2006’s now-classic Rabbit Fur Coat — and even before, while fronting her band Rilo Kiley — Jenny Lewis has been asking questions. Questions about what the hell we’re actually doing on this earth, about the ways we’re expected to behave, and who, if anyone, is actually in charge. Lewis continues the conversation on her new LP On the Line, which meditates deeply on loss in the wake of a breakup and the death of her mother, packaged in a cleavage-baring album cover that challenges our societal norms of how exactly a woman over 40 is supposed to present herself. Ahead of her gig on Sunday at the Mother Church, we break down the best of the gospel according to Jenny Lewis.  

“Born Secular”

“God goes / Where he wants / And who knows / Where he is not,” Lewis sings on this Rabbit Fur Coat track, with The Watson Twins surrounding her with gospel harmonies. But they leave her on her own as she rises to the tip of her high register to deliver a potent conclusion: “Not in me.” There’s a lot of God across Lewis’ debut solo LP, and she gives us permission to wonder for ourselves whether we actually believe the portrayal of religion we’ve been fed — to see if it’s possible to live a life where the blame for what troubles us lies only within ourselves, not in some ambiguous savior.  

“The Charging Sky”

One of Rabbit Fur Coat’s twangiest tracks, “The Charging Sky” chugs along with some Bob Dylan-style associative poetry, looking at the opiates available to us in the forms of religion and political divisions — forms that are easy for someone to manipulate. “You’ve been in the desert underneath the charging sky,” she sings. “It’s just you and God / But what if God’s not there? / But his name is on your dollar bill / Which just became cab fare.” Sometimes what we hold onto can be just that transient. 

“Rise Up With Fists!!”

Lewis was barely 30 when Rabbit Fur Coat was released, but she was already thinking about the constraints and expectations placed on us all — on women, to reproduce according to schedule while remaining the wrinkle-free image of youth; on humans in general, to find love or fulfillment or wealth. But Lewis isn’t having it, rising up with fury (and not one but two exclamation points). The message: Don’t take any shit you’re dished without first asking why, and considering whether you even want what’s being offered. “I will take what’s mine,” she sings, again with help from The Watson Twins. “There but for the grace of God go I.” 

“The Next Messiah”

Acid Tongue, Lewis’ second album, is full of lyrical and sonic surprises, including the nearly nine-minute psychedelic-blues workout “The Next Messiah.” Featuring Zooey Deschanel on background vocals, this song isn’t about the second coming of a savior: It’s about flawed characters, devilish roles and disappointments. And it reiterates the idea that maybe the only people who can really save us are the ones we see in the mirror looking back at us every day. 

“The Voyager”

The title song (and closing track) from Lewis’ third album features a vocal recorded live in the studio with the basic tracks — no overdubs or edits — and it’s a trippy mantra for anyone looking to take control of life. “The voyager’s in every boy and girl,” she sings. “If you wanna get to heaven / Get out of this world.” The kind of heaven she’s singing about is the one that can be reached right here on earth, when and if we let go of everything that sucks us into daily life. Tune out the internet, turn off the TV and revel in the present. Take a voyage. 

“Just One of the Guys”

Lewis has often pondered the roles that women are and aren’t meant to play, whether those are dictated by biology, religious constructs or whatever society calls for at a given time. But in this single from The Voyager, she explains that it’s not always so simple as a choice of accepting or rejecting norms. We can confront restrictive ideas while taking care of our own deep desires: A woman can want a baby and still not succumb to the pressure to have one according to plan. And sometimes, that requires a lot of work to convince yourself, as she sings in the chorus: “No matter how hard I try / To have an open mind / There’s a little clock inside that keeps tickin’.” 

“Wasted Youth” 

Having been in the Hollywood machine as a child actress and coped with a difficult family life, Lewis knows a thing or two about sacrificing a childhood in favor of more adult dreams. There’s a little bit of looking inward in On the Line standout “Wasted Youth” — she sings of poppies, evoking heroin, which her mother became addicted to. But the song more broadly examines everything that takes away the joy we’re supposed to feel before the weight of the world gets heavy. And yet she sings it as a delightful, lively bop, with subtle sonic cues from five decades of summer jams. You can read it as though she’s determined that youth is like a handful of change at the corner store, meant to be spent on sugary, ephemeral pursuits.