Adrianne Lenker and Love

Adrianne Lenker has often been dubbed one of the best songwriters of her generation and I am not one to dispel that. In fact, this is pretty much a love letter to her.

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Adrianne during promo for Bright Future

I don’t think there is an artist I have put as much of myself into as Adrianne Lenker. I feel so incredibly lucky to feel this connected to such a prolific artist while they are consistently releasing new music.

Lenker is one of my favorite song writers because everything she writes feels so tangible. While listening to her songs, love has never felt so real. To her this love is about familiarity and certainty. She knows her lover and her lover knows her. This understanding often comes through as pure warmth as there is an understood freedom in being with the person you love. They can dance together, they can tell each other anything, they can dream together, and their certainty persists. Love means to support and to receive support back and this love helps to complete you. Love through understanding has only become a more prominent theme in her music as she has gotten older. Sex often comes paired with this understanding, this love, as well as desire. There is always an emphasis on together and while she extends her feelings out to the other person. She exemplifies everything that I value about love. 

Adrianne writes in moments. Nowhere is this more evident than 2024's "Free Treasure." So many love songs speak in what if’s and or purely in feelings. Lenker often takes one or two moments that are closely tied with the feeling to really nail down a realistic experience. This song examines some of Lenker's insecurities while feeling so utterly safe with someone that they cease to matter in the first place. "Free Treasure" is about the kind of love that leaves everything else at the door. As I mentioned before, Lenker often writes through moments. Here, Lenker describes the scene of a kitchen in which her lover is cooking dinner. There is something so intimate about the setting of a kitchen, even more so when something this simple prompts the line "Just when I thought I couldn't feel more, I feel a little more." This is a song of pure bliss that is founded on understanding and "love without measure." It is something so universally desirable that it's hard not to want.

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Songs CD art

Every year since I started listening in late 2020 there has been a release that absolutely floors me. This year’s spot goes to “Los Angeles.” The first time I heard that song I was sitting out on the west terrace eating a pita wrap from Halal Shack and I think it's the single most concentrated joy I’ve ever felt. 

The first track off of Bright Future gave me the opposite experience. I am not one to cry at music, but I teared up during my first listen of “Real House.” Subsequent listens have been equally difficult. I was brave and decided to listen while writing this. Lenker talks about wanting the purity and love back from being a child. The song follows the loss of innocence and is stripped back so heavily that you’re forced to pay attention. It’s packed with so much love and hope about growing up despite leading to the destruction of this with something as simple as seeing your parents cry.

2024’s Bright Future gave me multiple memorable first listens as I don’t think I’ve ever been as instantly captivated by a song as I was the first time I heard “Sadness as a Gift.” It is so rare to hear something that you know is going to mean so much to you forever. 

Adrianne performing during her 2024 tour

I was lucky enough to attend her show at the Chicago Theater during June of last year. Lenker was incredible of course, but what made her set particularly captivating was her ability to personalize it so heavily. For most of the time she was alone on stage with her guitar. Lenker was able to pull from her catalog as well as Big Thief's each night on a whim. She even played a couple that were unreleased. All of this gave a very personal feel to the concert so I can't say I was surprised when Lenker released a live album earlier this year that I can only describe as intimate. The songs on Live at Revolution Hall are soft and warm. A lot of the sound quality is fuzzy, and you can hear the audience participate throughout. More than anything this album feels like a love letter from Adrianne. Kind of literally, there are multiple interludes where she directly tells the audience she loves them. Her music has always had so much heart, but here it is bleeding through.

I feel as though I’ve put as much love back into Lenker's work. So much of that is because I align with her definition of love being rooted in understanding.