Lydia Luce
Lydia Luce may be a longtime staple of Nashville’s indie-rock and folk scenes, but she’s a Florida girl at heart. Her new record of that name, released Oct. 27, is an exercise in reclaiming her roots and returning to being at peace with her body after a turbulent time.
It comes as no surprise that Florida Girl is deeply personal, reflecting on topics like acceptance, difficult relationships and Luce’s experience with an eating disorder. This level of intimacy isn’t new for Luce. But in a conversation ahead of the Nov. 4 release celebration at The Blue Room, she explains what’s different: She’s sharing what’s on her heart while it’s happening, cultivating an environment for vulnerability between herself and the listener.
“With eating disorders, it’s like a lifelong thing that is with you forever — not that it doesn’t get better,” Luce says. “So it doesn’t feel like when I’ve spoken about other vulnerable topics with my writing. It doesn’t feel as sealed-up and packaged, and, like, ‘OK, I figured out how to conquer this, and now I’m ready to share it with the world.’ But I also feel like I’m excited for the part of the vulnerability where people are also vulnerable back, and share their stories, because a lot of this stuff is so isolating.”
The album has an organic blend of acoustic and electronic elements and playful dynamics: Sometimes Luce’s soft voice floats over pounding drums and chugging guitars, and sometimes it’s cradled in synth swells and string plucks. That’s a perfect fit for Luce’s writing, as the title track, and much of the rest of the record, reckons with reunification. Luce is reconnecting her past and present selves, and herself with the family she’s grown apart from. While they have their fair share of differences, Luce says she’s been able to build a healthy relationship with where and who she came from.
Lydia Luce
“I think part of that is like, yeah, I’m from Florida — it’s a weird state,” she says. “I’m from a family that’s really conservative and very religious, and we have different opinions on almost everything. But there, I didn’t choose that. They’re my family, and, like, there’s still so much love, and I feel like they’re mostly accepting me now.”
Part of Luce’s growth has been learning to make a priority of caring for herself for the first time. The past year has been fraught with chronic pain and the mental struggle that often accompanies such experiences. Luce is a multi-instrumentalist whose classical experience includes leading the Lockeland Strings ensemble, and she’s suffered injuries from years of overplaying. She has had to learn all-new ways of self-care and expression.
“I’m really proud of myself, the way I’ve taken care of myself and learned to take care of myself,” she says. “I found a new therapist. I got on an antidepressant, which was so hard. And I was like: ‘I need help, in that I can’t control my body right now. What can I do to help my mental health?’ [With ‘Saline,’] I’ll remember this time with that song, of this amazing community of women and men — people that I found that fully supported me. And it’s mutual.”
“Saline” is gentle in tone but sneakily propulsive, conveying both stress and the need to soothe it. Percussion played softly but at a frantic pace drives a strumming acoustic guitar as Luce croons, “We take care of each other / This I’ll do for you.” With all the heartache it entails, Luce has found something beautiful in her experience with chronic pain. Her new connections with others reach beyond what she knew was possible.
“I feel like I’ve learned so much through this process. All the lessons that I’ve learned — really it’s only been in the last five months. It’s very compacted, but I feel like these lessons are out there. They were meant to learn right now to help me for the rest of my life. So sometimes we have to learn lessons through pain. … When you’re vulnerable, it creates this space for other people to share. And maybe some of those people have never shared.”
