The early days of the COVID-19 pandemic catalyzed career upheavals and periods of personal reflection for many Nashville musicians, but 2020 marked an especially transformative time for Lera Lynn. As global lockdowns and quarantines became new societal norms, the accomplished singer-songwriter found herself trying to navigate those strange times while adjusting to life as a new mother.
That wave of new experiences and unexpected challenges birthed plenty of lyrical inspiration for Lynn, who wanted to capture those moments while they were still fresh in her mind. The result is her sixth studio album Something More Than Love, out Friday; it’s a follow-up to On My Own, the self-produced album Lynn started in 2019 and released in 2020. On the new record, Lynn deconstructs her self-image and examines the evolution of her identity, ensconced in evocative arrangements that draw from power pop, R&B, post-New Wave rock ’n’ roll and even hints of trip-hop here and there.
“There’s a little fear around it for me, honestly, that people won’t listen to it because the topic is not sexy,” Lynn tells the Scene. “I was going through some pretty serious postpartum depression, which is something that is not really talked about. I was isolated in the pandemic, and I felt so alone. I honestly was afraid to tell even my therapist, because it was all new territory for me.”
Lynn’s journey into motherhood and the complicated emotions that come with such an immense life change became a major driver for her work. Rarely are these topics elevated or explored in-depth in the overwhelmingly male-dominated music industry. Lynn has built an audience through constantly evolving art that’s deeply personal and honest, along the way developing the tools she needed to make Something More Than Love. The record lays bare the immense joy, paralyzing pain and dizzying uncertainty that we all might face in some form, but are often expected to keep hidden.
“It just baffles me,” Lynn says. “Motherhood and becoming a mother is the most significant experience of my life, and I would argue that it’s likely the most significant of any mother’s life. And yet there’s so little music or art depicting it. There’s a lot of shame that is projected onto women for going through depression. [Motherhood is] like whiplash for your whole identity. Your whole world changes. I don’t want to cast a negative light on the experience, because it’s obviously filled with joy and the deepest love you can ever feel, but there are aspects of it that aren’t discussed. And I think that should change.”
Lynn kept pushing forward, taking advantage of any rare free moments to map out lyrics and scenes she wanted to highlight from her own experiences.
“I was sort of sleep-deprived and delusional, but I felt like I needed to be very deliberate about this,” she explains. “I thought, ‘I’m not going to be able to just wait for inspiration to strike. I have to carve it out.’ ”
Over the course of six months, she cultivated a captivating soundscape that swells and grooves — organically incorporating synthesizers, string sections and more — without overpowering her insightful and impactful lyrics. Lynn produced the record with her partner and longtime creative collaborator Todd Lombardo, who helped channel those complicated feelings and moods she envisioned.
Through raw self-reflection, Lynn tries to untangle what it means to inhabit a new version of herself, putting her own needs aside for the better of another. From the driving indie-rock gem “Kamikaze” to the regrettably timely investigation of autonomy “What Is This Body,” she carries the audience along as she chases the right words to express her new sense of self.
“I think it’s difficult for your self-concept to evolve sometimes at the rate at which your body is changing,” says Lynn. “It feels so disconnected. It’s like, ‘Wait, this is who I am?’ This doesn’t feel like who I am when I look in the mirror. That was a big part of going through pregnancy. But there’s also such a societal emphasis on youth in the entertainment industry, and even more so for women in the industry.”
Thematic threads of femininity and motherhood run through Something More Than Love. They reinforce a central message about unity, human nature and our individual journeys toward self-acceptance.
“I think anyone can relate to it, regardless of their gender, but especially women who go through pregnancy,” she Lynn. “I think the bigger point is the societal pressure that is placed on all of us to look a certain way — and trying to reconcile our own identity as our body is changing.”
Lynn’s working title for the project was The Birth of the Mother, but she scrapped that after realizing that the core theme reached much further than her own experience. The title track, which she says acts as the “thematic focus for the record,” highlights the invisible bonds that tie us all together.
“ ‘Something More Than Love’ is a statement that summarizes the forces that are beyond love that push us to make sacrifices for each other,” she explains. “That’s something that’s embedded in our DNA. … These are things that are ancient and deep that we are all subjected to and all a part of.”
That sense of a unifying spirit seems harder and harder to find. For Lynn, the need to celebrate and strengthen those ties remains a driving force in her creative process.
“It’s always my goal that there’s something for everyone to connect to in there. As a songwriter, I think that it’s sort of my charge to take my specific experience, find the deeper universal meaning and communicate that somehow.”
