Song Exploder - Fenne Lily - Lights Light Up

Episode Date: July 10, 2024

Fenne Lily is a singer and songwriter from Dorset, England. She released her first album in 2018, but I didn’t find her music until 2023, when she put out her third album, Big Picture. The album she released in between those two was one that got a little lost in the lockdown, when all her touring plans around it got canceled. All of that plays into the story she tells in this episode, about making her song “Lights Light Up” from that third album. I spoke to Fenne in front of a live audience at WBUR CitySpace in Boston. Coming up, you’ll hear how the song evolved across different versions of demos and then in the studio, where she recorded it with Grammy-nominated producer Brad Cook.For more, visit songexploder.net/fenne-lily.

You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishi Kesh Hirwe. Fen Lili is a singer and songwriter from Dorset, England. She released her first album in 2018, but I didn't find her music until 2023, when she put out her third album, Big Picture. The album that she released in between those two was one that got a little lost in the lockdown when all her touring plans around it got canceled. And all of that plays into the story that she tells in this episode. about making her song Lights Light Up. I spoke to Fen in front of a live audience at WBUR City Space in Boston.

Coming up, you'll hear how Lights Light Up evolve across different versions of demos and then later in the studio with Grammy-nominated producer Brad Cook. My name's Fen Lily. I released a 2020 record called Breach, and I was meant to go on a Waxahatchy tour and another tour with Lucy Dacus, and then COVID. and I found myself at home for a year and didn't write a single thing in that year. I was in Bristol with my boyfriend at the time in a one-bedroom house, and one of the rooms that was meant to be the bedroom was just crumbling wall

made of what looked like cheese and what smelled like mold. So it was really cool and fun and healthy. and that was the headspace I was in. I wasn't listening to any music because I was so sad that I couldn't tour my record that had taken three years to make. So I was in a whole of just listening to crime, kidnapping, murder stuff, this whole of only absorbing content that was so much about pain that I hit a wall and I was like, well, What's the nicest thing I can think of? And calligraphy was what I decided was the most innocent, uplifting thing. My Nana has really beautiful handwriting. I was like, I want to learn how to improve my handwriting. So I bought a journal and I started writing prose. I've never done that before. Would you mind reading out loud the first thing that you wrote in that journal? Well, first I wrote my contact details in case it got lost. I didn't leave the house.

So it never got lost. All right. February 13th, 2021. It says, before I started learning French, I memorized one phrase, I love you, but I can't. This is true.

Chet Mision and Papa. It felt good to say. I just was doing kind of stream of consciousness. And fully intending for it to just be a practice space for conversing with myself. So I think buying this journal and not having to worry about whether I could write another album, whether my life was going to be different to how I imagined it, was really helpful.

And I think it just unlocked something. I started writing lights light up the next week. That first demo is from the first day of me figuring it out. Me and my boyfriend had had a big fight and he'd left and went and stayed with a friend. and I really thought that that was going to be the fight that ended the relationship. So I thought if this is going to be the end, I'd like to try and map out the start because when something bad happens,

the temptation is to dissolve the good parts because it makes you too sad to think about the good parts when you're sad. So I thought, I'm going to start this song with me alone, as I was before I met him. And then the next verse will be, Me meeting him and then the third verse will be us together. The traffic lights light up as we stand kissing. In the car horns play.

I'm talking about the traffic lights light up as we stand kissing. We had our first kiss at our traffic lights. I had had a long string of small, painful flings. and I was apparently failing to do something that I really wanted to do, which was be in love with somebody in a real way. And then this brilliant person shows up. You said, what do you ever want to? That depends on the day.

Get out of this line. What I had to do was say what I actually was feeling, which was the most difficult part because I'm scared of what I'm feeling, which is maybe this has reached an end point that we both need. but neither of us want. So I wrote those three verses and that chorus and forgot about it, I think, for six months. Until the next big, big fight with my boyfriend,

the writing process is very much punctuated by desperation, fear, and loneliness. I think those are the three ingredients for a good song. Yeah, we had a big fight, and I thought, now I have the end of my story. I wrote the end of the song as if the relationship. relationship had ended. You didn't listen when I told you have no time. But also between February, March and when I picked it up again, someone in my family was diagnosed

with cancer and I took it so badly. Worse than I should have considering it wasn't me that was sick, I made it all about me. I was really scared because I'd never had somebody that I loved close to being lost in a real way. It honestly just has a fleeting mention and that felt like enough. Each verse of this song has four lines. Trying to fit two years of experiences into a very limited number of words

is actually really liberating and easy because you can't waffle. You just have to hopefully do a big feeling justice with a few small words. and then COVID was partially lifted in the UK. So we went out and did a few shows in December and lights lie up, I would play it in sound check. At this point, I broke up with the person that the song is about.

This recording is the first and only recording from the immediate aftermath of the breakup. Joe plays guitar with me. my bassist, Kane and drummer James, they have such clear identities as musicians. And I wanted to take this song from a place of sadness and helplessness to a place that sounded uplifting as much as my dulcet tones can allow. And through that we kind of pieced together

different ideas that worked. It finally has momentum and I think the songs that are being written about being stuck, that is a helpful thing to have and it's also so much more fun to play faster. So I had the arrangements

and then we flew to North Carolina to record the record. I knew that I wanted to work with Brad Cook that Waxahatchee record, St. Cloud, he produced that. That's a very poetic record, and it's perfectly executed. And I needed somebody who could give us the space and permission to take the songs in directions that we hadn't thought to take them before. And that's exactly what he did. I think Joe's guitar part

has become the main character in this song. I say really annoying things when I'm giving direction in my band. I'll say something like, play a guitar part that sounds like you were looking for something and now you've found it. And he was like, say no more.

Please say no more. He knows when to not play, which is as important as knowing when to play, leaving space. letting there be room. My instruction was to keep everything moving because I felt like the vocal part is very static. I wanted everything else to be swirling and moving.

That like close mic way of recording drums really helps to feel like there's something happening all the time but none of it's too much. So the bass has the job of gluing everything together in a melodic way. I went to record the lyrics. It's the first time

that I'd really saw it as a story that wasn't something that was being figured out anymore. It wasn't like a puzzle to play with. It was like an exact description of this entire relationship that had now ended and we were on different parts. Yeah, I started crying and I'm not a crier ever, really. I'm very uncomfortable with other people crying, so I try not to do it. Yeah, I cried. And you said, oh, do you even want to be here? And I said, well, that depends on the way.

That's Kane playing bass chords. We put those bass chords in and thought we'll never use them. And then when we got to mixing, there was a space that needed filling and that was it. Phil Cook is an incredible pianist. He's also Brad's brother. I did six years of piano lessons. Can't play piano. Brad was watching me

frustratedly try and put piano on a lot of the songs and gently suggested maybe we get Phil. So yeah, got Phil over to be better at piano than me. I think the first band demo where we were figuring out the parts, I was just excited that it had come together in a cool. way. So after I finished singing the first chorus, I just went, yeah. And then I thought, that's actually kind of cool. Maybe it's a British thing, but saying something sincere that you mean and you feel has to kind of be followed by like a word that undoes some of the sincerity because it's so

embarrassing to be so serious. So to have a song that's about love growing and falling apart and someone may be dying of cancer and then to be like, yep, well, that was that. So, That has to happen. And I recreated the spontaneity, which is always a very smooth and cool move. And I said, well, that depends on the way. Yeah. The really exciting thing about making music, aside from people hearing it, is if you ever want to hear where your head was at, at a certain point in time, you can. It's all stored there.

This is like a time capsule pre-falling in real love for the first time all the way to the dissolution of that love. It feels like a time that was really important and precious. Recording in North Carolina, that was the happiest I had been up until that point. I was living in the studio. So I just felt really at peace and I trusted everyone I was working with. and after a year and a half of living in the same room with a person who at the same time as they're holding me together, they're also tearing me apart to be in that environment with Brad and the guys was so amazing. I think part of the reason why I cried was because I was like, I did it.

I found what I wanted, which was to feel light and free and be with people again. Coming up, you'll hear how all these ideas and elements, came together in the final song. I have a new album of my own coming out on April 24th. It's been about 15 years since I last put out a full length, and this is the first one that'll be out under my own name, Rishi Kesh Her Way. I started making Song Exploder when I was feeling lost in my own music career. And then for over a decade, I've gotten to have these incredible conversations

about the process of making music, talking to other artists, and it made me completely rethink my relationship to music and my way of writing songs. and this album is the product of all of that. It features contributions from some of my favorite artists, including some folks that you may have heard on this podcast, like Iron and Wine, Kevin Morby, Vagabon, Fenlily, and the producer Phil Wine Rope. I'm going to be on tour playing in cities across the U.S. starting in April,

and I'm trying to bring the spirit of the podcast with me. So every show that I'm playing will begin with a conversation about the album with a different amazing guest moderator in each city, like Adam Scott, Samin Nasrat, Jason Manzukas, Josh Molina, Minjin Lee, Ken Jennings, John Roderick, Austin Cleon, and more. They're all going to be my conversation partners on stage, and then I'll play with my band. The album is called In The Last Hour of Light, and the first couple songs are out now. You can listen to the music and get tickets for the shows on my website, rishikash.co, or just go to songexploder.net slash live.

That's songexploder.net slash live. Thanks. And now here's Lights Light Up by Fenlily in its entirety. The pressure inside of me. Visit SongExploder.net. You'll find links to buy or stream Lights Light Up, and you can watch the music video. This episode was produced by Craig Ely, Theo Balcom,

Kathleen Smith, Mary Dolan, and myself. The episode artwork is by Carlos Lerma, and I made the show's theme music and logo. Thanks so much to Stephen David. and everyone at WBUR City Space. Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, a network of independent, listener-supported, artist-owned podcasts. You can learn more about our shows at Radiotopia.fm.

If you'd like to hear more from me, you can sign up for my newsletter, which you can find a link to on the Song Exploder website. You can also follow me and Song Exploder on Instagram, and you can get a Song Exploder t-shirt at songexploder.net slash shirt. I'm Rishi-Kesh Hereway. Thanks for listening.