Since my radio consumption is now exclusively via podcasts and I don’t tend to use music streaming services, exposure to new music has become much harder. In fact, the primary routes through which I currently discover new artists are film and TV soundtracks, and — believe it or not — Tik Tok. Whilst Tik Tok tends to package trending sounds into comodified memes, there are also a number of great musicians using Tik Tok videos and live streams to propel their music out into the world. A recent discovery has been American singer-songwriter Leezy.
Content note: addiction
Mama says you can’t reach the dreams in the
Leezy, Bathtub Blues
Little cloud that leaks from your pipe but
Every time I light up it seems that I don’t know how
No, I don’t know how to be alone.
Lately, Leezy has become the soundtrack to my broken sleep, often tuning into her live streams from the US at 3am in London. Musical comparisons to Lana del Rey and Mazzy Star are common in the chat, but a British ear will recognise some of her older influences like the fragility of Portishead, and the delicate simplicity of Massive Attack.
Despite her youth, there is a poetic depth to Leezy’s lyrics. During her live streams she speaks openly about her battle with addiction to drugs and alcohol as teenager, having now been sober for three years. That lived experience permeates her songwriting. Her last single, Sierra, is named after the residential treatment facility at which she recovered.
Look at all the pretty faces
Leezy, Sierra
Come to heal from different places
You give it all away in hope of a better day
And I promised you that I’ll get well
Leezy is self-aware about her affluent upbringing and the privilege it afforded her, particularly when it came to turning her life around. But what her music captures is that affluence does not provide protection from emotional pain, which she delivers in a minimalist style that is both raw and beautiful. The bisexual confusion of Girls Like You is provocative social commentary both lyrically (“So then why’d she kiss me last Friday night? / Just cause she thought it was something the boys might like”) and through the increasingly less subtle euphemistic sapphic imagery of its music video.
He said my lips felt warm when we were kissing
Leezy, Stargazer
But only after he’d made me cry
And he said, “baby, I didn’t mean it this time”
And stargazer lillies don’t make up for everything
But I always go back to hear him sing
I was initially won over by several songs on her 2019 Dear Diary EP. After requesting a song during one live stream, we discussed how she now has to transpose those songs to perform them because her voice has changed from the time they were recorded when she was smoking daily. I am glad that she does not find talking or singing about those periods to be a trigger. Indeed, her next single — due for imminent release on 29th July — is bluntly titled Cocaine Kisses and is, in her own words, about the romanticisation of drug use, the seduction of addiction and the illusion of connection. As someone whose views on addiction were shaped by Johann Hari’s TED Talk about the link between addiction and isolation or disconnection, to me this combination of themes seems entirely on point and I can’t wait to hear it.
30 July 2022 at 3:49 am
Excellent analysis from someone who obviously has an understanding of more modern music. When I listen to her lives, my thinking goes back to Billie Holliday, Edith Piaf, Ethel Waters, or Ida Cox. With humor and grace she captures the very real struggles of life and coming to terms with them.