If You Think You're Alone, Hold On, I'm Coming

Bonjour, mes chéris! Thank you for supporting my Substack: Duchess of Rock, which features a weekly song pick I’ve chosen just for you. Today I’m celebrating one of my favorite artists of last year, who is up for four Grammys on Sunday night, and who I admire for her powerful journey of healing and her depth of feeling and musicianship.

Today’s pick: “The Returner,” by Allison Russell, from her 2023 album, “The Returner”

It would be beatific and inspiring enough, simply to witness Allison Russell sing. Her voice is potent and reaching, her face transcendent as she dives down deep inside herself for the notes, and for the joy she has stubbornly claimed as her birthright as an artist and woman. It’s even more remarkable when you listen to her lyrics or explore the subject matter of her forthcoming memoir, also from Flatiron Books (yes, I’m honored to share a publisher with this remarkable artist). Both the book and her songs recount the horrific abuse she suffered at the hands of her white-supremacist stepfather, whom she fled at age 15 and caused her to live on the streets of Montreal.

After being moved by Allison’s show at the El Rey in L.A., which I was lucky enough to attend with a close friend who works for her label, I turned to her recorded music, which I found to capture the emotional resonance of her live performance. I was especially struck by a song that had been a showstopper in concert, the title track from her most recent album, “The Returner.” It opens with a sinuous melody, a wash of percussion, her voice coaxing us close to witness her release her past: “Now I let go everything that I’ve known, let it go out, let it roll out with the tide. I can’t think of a thing that hasn’t been shot through with pain, like a nightingale’s song in the dead of the night.”

But this is no lament. As her voice ascends with purpose, she proclaims her worth, her power, her faith: “I’m a summer dream, I’m a real live queen, I’m worthy of all the goodness and the love that the world is gonna give to me.” The song rises and falls several times, opening up into a breakdown of elegant, hopeful strings, chased by a searching and dissonant electric guitar — she and her band entering into a call and response of yearning, of healing, of eventual peace and lightness. It’s as if having learned to comfort herself, Allison is now turning her powers to the world beyond her, a testament to her grace as a human and her courage as an artist.

One of my favorite aspects of being a music journalist was getting to interview bands I admired about their inspiration and process. I was always drawn to the philosophy that if you believed good reviews, then you had to believe the bad ones, too. And as long as you are working hard and digging deep, you are doing it right and shouldn’t be swayed by the opinions of others. The music should and could stand on its own, and the writing I did about it was meant to give context but couldn’t replace the ultimate experience of listening for yourself.

This grounding would serve me years later when I published a memoir. I learned that when you do personal writing of this nature, reviews aren’t relegated to your artistry, but also touch on how successfully you healed from whatever troubles you have taken up the pen to dissect and hopefully to purge. Whereas you might think someone hasn’t healed quickly or well enough, the truth is you can never judge from the outside how another person is doing their life’s work. And yet, when I encounter an artist like Allison, I can’t help but want to draw close to her, to see what lessons she has to teach, and to celebrate the accomplishment of the artistry she has used to access her own healing and joy. 

Please sing along to a song of healing or joy – whatever you need today. Love, the Duchess

In book news:

My debut novel, “The Last Days of the Midnight Ramblers,” is coming Feb. 13 from Flatiron Books. Celebrate my book launch with me that same day at Skylight Books in Los Angeles. Visit my publisher’s website for a full list of my upcoming events, including stops in Portland, Maine; Pittsboro, North Carolina; Boston; Brooklyn; Phoenix; Tucson; and Seattle and please come on down and say hello!