Lissie's latest album 'My Wild West' - her third - sounds a little too much like Lana Del Ray in places for my liking. But two-thirds of the way through is Daughters, an absolute peach of a song in which she channels Stevie Nicks. A very good thing.
Daughters was written for WaterAid, as the video suggests. Its message is clear enough so I won't dwell on it, I just think it's the best thing she's done for quite a while. I've written about Lissie before and mentioned the Stevie Nicks resemblance then. Not that I want to labour the point or anything, but she also does a terrific version of one of Fleetwood Mac's best songs:
And just for the hell of it, here's a live version of my favourite Lissie song:
Soundtrack: Your MP3 for the day is another cover, one which compliments tomorrow's post:
Bully just kind of fell in my lap really. I first heard it through the blog We all Want Someone To Shout For. The author, Will Oliver, raved about this song and its singer Lissie (who I think he had rather a soft spot for, if you know what I mean) so I took a punt. What happened was one of those jawdropping moments I’ve talked about. Bully is just a lovely, beautifully written song, and performed with a perfect balance of emotion and bite. Lissie appeared to have a sound of her own, a singer-songwriter who seemed to appreciate how a ballad should be. It’s not over-produced, it’s not oversung, it’s not got one of those almighty orchestral climaxes with the obligatory key change; neither is it all acoustic guitars and whiny vocals. Instead Lissie sounds like a cross between Stevie Nicks and Martha Wainwright; a folk singer with a blues-rock edge. And damn, can the girl do pop music. Bully entranced me for all of its three and three-quarter minutes. I immediately played it again and again. It wasn’t even released as a single, which strikes me as rather bizarre. It is an undoubted highlight of her highly lauded debut album ‘Catching A Tiger’. What you might call a hidden gem.
