Liv Greene
Liv Greene isn’t running from herself anymore. She has pried herself open and let real longing, frustration, and love break free. Then, she put it all in a song. “For a long time, writing was an escape from myself,” Greene says. “I was not okay with who I was. I was trying not to think about myself.” She pauses, then explains, “These songs are a healing or reframing of my relationship with the craft.”
Greene is home in East Nashville, talking about Deep Feeler, her upcoming sophomore album. The smart collection of beautiful melodies and folk-rooted storytelling is a vulnerable snapshot of hard-won self-acceptance. It’s feminine, queer, and defiant. It’s also the official arrival of Liv Greene, as she wants the world to know her.
“This record captures me in the midst of a shift, a change in how I view my place in the world,” Greene says. “Now, rather than an escape from myself, songwriting is communion with myself.”
Just 24 years old at the time, Greene produced Deep Feeler herself. In the storied rooms of Nashville’s Woodland Sound Studios, she collaborated with celebrated engineer Matt Andrews (Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings, O Brother, Where Art Thou?). With additional help from friend and guitarist Jack Schneider (Vince Gill), Greene took her time. "There were lots of points in the process where it could have been done,” she says. “The vision for it changed shape a bunch of times, but the commitment to trying to get the songs right––the production of each individual song––was always at the center, alongside keeping the guitar and voice as the record’s heartbeat.”
The result is 10 songs that transform the personal into the universal. Greene’s vocals and guitar are the album’s anchor, just as she wanted. And oh, that voice: Sometimes serene like a deep, cool pool, then it breaks, like a wave crashing on a rock. It’s unsettling and peaceful, all at once. Greene called on friends––her “dream rhythm section,” made up of upright bassist Hazel Royer and drummer Dominic Billett. The team tracked live to tape, and as the songs came, Greene realized she still wanted more: Sarah Jarosz on mandolin and harmonies, Elise Leavy on accordion and piano. Then pedal steel, electric guitar, organ, fiddle, and more came in for cameos, all in the service of the song.
“I’m aware I’m a liar,” Greene sings in the very first line of the album’s title track. The confession and warning crackles in the immediate pause after Greene utters it. Then, she continues with heartbreaking clarity: “Always lying to myself about my expectations.” This self-awareness, this embracing of imperfection, appears throughout the record as Greene expertly straddles the line between showcasing wisdom far beyond her years and remaining relatable to any mid-twenties woman trying to live authentically in a world that doesn’t always make doing so easy. “I’d been toying with the idea of a song that’s kind of like a manifesto: Like, yeah, I know I’m a little delusional. I have relational trauma. I fall really hard and get hurt all the time because of it,” Greene explains. “But I am who I am, and I’m proud of that. I am proud of how deeply I feel things.”
Building line upon vivid line of little sweet things, album standout “Flowers” is a tender push for self-reliance. “I’d just gone through a breakup, and I hadn’t been single for most of my teens or adult life,” Greene says. “I was trying to figure out how to love myself. I remember after writing it, feeling like I didn’t believe it yet––I wasn’t there yet. I was still struggling to show myself love and feel fine on my own. So it was almost like a mission statement: I need to learn how to love myself and not need anyone to do that for me.”
A favorite of Greene’s to play live, “Katie” is a love song rooted in permission to just be. “This came out of a relationship that wasn’t my first queer love experience, but it was my first time allowing it to not be a bad thing,” she says. “It comes from a place of tenderness––of allowing yourself to feel those romantic feelings and really revel in them.”
Album closer “I Can Be Grateful” is a stunner––and one of the songs Greene is most proud of writing. Wielding only her voice and guitar, she holds space for traditionally opposing emotions and realities to coexist, simultaneously: “I can be grateful, and still mad / I can be happy and still sad.” Granting herself the freedom to feel has allowed Greene to give the rest of us freedom, too. “I used to write fiction, primarily––I don’t think any of my early songs were from a place of actual heartbreak,” she says. “This record is completely autobiographical. For people who are in a period of life when words can inspire them to come to acceptance, I hope it helps. For others, I hope they can find comfort in just the sound of the music. These songs are for anyone.”
Learn more about Liv at her website.
Liv Greene recordings from Free Dirt Records:
