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Lucy Wright: Dolly Parton 'Here You Come Again'
115 Plays10 months ago
Warning: This episode may cause the impulse to sing like no one’s listening.
We were so chuffed to welcome the brilliant Lucy Wright to Survival Songs with her choice, Here You Come Again by Dolly Parton.
Search ‘Survival Songs’ to find episodes on all your usual podcasting platforms and add to our community playlist over on Spotify.
Lucy Wright is an artist based in Leeds, UK. Her multidisciplinary practice sits at the intersection of folklore and activism, often using as source material the large personal archive of photographs and research she has gathered over more than a decade of documenting lesser-known contemporary and female-led folk customs. Concerned primarily with inclusivity and representation in the British folk arts, she is the author of the ‘Folk is a Feminist Issue’ manifesta, and creator of ‘hedge morris dancing’—a 100% invented tradition and participatory performance project for anyone who has ever wanted to dance the sun down!
Following a stint as the lead singer in BBC Folk Award-nominated act, Pilgrims' Way, Wright received a Vice Chancellor’s scholarship from Manchester School of Art for her PhD before becoming a Visiting Research Fellow in Folklore at University of Hertfordshire in 2019. "Folk is the stuff we make, do and think for ourselves—and the radical potential of these things.” Says Lucy. "What if ‘folklore’ wasn’t just a niche interest, but a potent agent for resistance and change?"
Show notes:
Help us a grow a community of survival song listeners by joining us on over on Substack:
https://survivalsongs.substack.com/
Lucy’s website: www.lucywright.art
Instagram: @lucy_j_wright
‘Here You Come Again’ by Dolly Parton can be found on our community playlist on Spotify along with our listener’s Survival Songs. Check it out and add your own!
Find out more about Dolly Parton here.
This episode contains small portions of ’Here You Come Again’ by Dolly Parton. Survival Songs claims no copyright of this work. This is included as a form of music review and criticism and as a way to celebrate, promote and encourage the listener to seek out the artist’s work.
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Transcript
Introduction and Concept of Survival Songs
00:00:01
Speaker
I'm Lydia. I'm Ed. We're friends with a playlist for everything. And it turns out, we both have one called Survival Songs. And he got us thinking, what are other people's survival songs? So we thought we'd find out. Welcome to Survival Songs. A podcast where each episode our guest tells us about a song that gets them through the best and worst of times. Sensitive topics might be discussed. So look after yourself. The show contains portions of copyrighted material. We'd love for you to support and celebrate the artists by streaming, downloading and buying their brilliant music. And go give our guests a follow on social media.
00:00:38
Speaker
Help us grow the community of survival song listeners by joining us over on Substack and add to our public playlist on Spotify. Links are in the show notes. We hope you enjoy the show.
Introduction to Lucy Wright
00:00:49
Speaker
Hi, everyone. I am so looking forward to you hearing this episode with our guest artist, Lucy Wright. Lucy Wright is an artist based in Leeds in the UK, and her multidisciplinary practice sits at the intersection of folklore and activism. She's concerned primarily with inclusivity and representation in the British folk arts, and is the author of Folk is a Feminist Issue, a manifesto that aims for a more inclusive folk practice. She's the creator of Hedge Morris Dancing, which is a totally invented tradition and participatory performance project for anyone who has ever wanted to dance the sun down.
00:01:31
Speaker
You'll hear her talk a little bit about her time as lead singer of the act Pilgrim's Way, and she has had multiple exhibitions so far this year. Her work is definitely, definitely worth checking out.
Lucy's Survival Song Choice
00:01:45
Speaker
She wasn't sure what to choose for her survival song, but has landed on an absolute banger. This is Here You Come Again by Dolly Parton.
00:02:15
Speaker
Okay, so if Ed's done his editing magic, you will have just heard a few seconds of Here You Come Again by Dolly Parton, which is the survival song of our guest today. I'm grinning because it's Lucy Wright. Hi, Lucy Wright. Hello. How are you doing? I'm doing really well. I'm so glad you said yes to this. Thank you. Thanks for inviting me. It's lovely. It's lovely to chat with you about this very specific topic. It's such a specific topic and a specific song. um I want to start with the question we always start by asking, which is when did you first hear this song and what was your reaction to it?
00:02:52
Speaker
No, so like when I was a kid, when I was growing up, we took a lot of very long car journeys, not for any sort of good reason. Like, I think my parents just had like ants in their pants and didn't want to stay home very much. So we we would often go out on the weekends in the car. ah So I feel like a lot of my like childhood was spent in the back, in the backseat of the car.
Musical Influences and Childhood Memories
00:03:13
Speaker
And I actually quite liked car journeys. I was an only child, but I did enjoy a car journey. And I think the main reason I enjoyed the car journey was because it gave me an opportunity to listen to music and also to sing along really, really loudly and sort of just, I don't know, just lose myself in that whole space. And we had three cassette tapes that we had in kind of rotation.
00:03:34
Speaker
and on these long car journeys. um We had the greatest hits of Kirsty McColl, which I still stand by. I think that's that's an excellent that was an excellent choice from my parents. We also had a self-recorded cassette tape that my uncle had made of himself singing folk songs in his kitchen in or around, let's say, 1987 or eight, something like that. ah just like 20 or 30 songs, folk songs, song unaccompanied, you know, bite into just some sort of little tape recorder that he had at home and it's basically formed the entirety of my folk song repertoire, like I still sing these songs, it's... i've recorded some of them like it's the thing that yeah sort of spurred my interest in folk and then the third cassette tape that we had was the greatest hits of dolly partner and very specifically the greatest hits of dolly parton the album that came out in 1989 because dolly partners had many many greatest hits as we all know um and this was very specifically the 1989 version so it had a lot of the old classics it had like um
00:04:41
Speaker
The original version of I Will Always Love You. People think it's a Whitney Houston song. Dolly Parton wrote it. She sang it first. um It also had Islands in the Stream with Kenny Rogers. It had 9 to 5. It had all the classics, all the old classics. And it also had this song, Here You Come Again. And Here You Come Again was actually the very first song. It was track one. on this particular Greatest Hits cassette tape. So I guess, I don't remember the exact first time that I heard it in its entirety, but it was always the first song that I heard when we put that cassette tape in, those bars that come in, you know, like...
Empowerment and Personal Interpretation of Music
00:05:24
Speaker
that and I was like right I'm in it this is a Dolly Parton hour. That's such a magic memory that's so gorgeous and um what a precious take from your uncle too that's wild do you remember any tracks from that? Oh my god I mean yeah so like as I said most of my folk song repertoire came from that so The Handweaver and the Factory Maid which was a song that We recorded with with my band, Pilgrim's Way, years ago, and there's still a YouTube video kicking around of us miming to the hand weaver in the factory made while sitting on the back of a tar boat. Yeah. Oh, what else was there? Oh, Mariah Martin, the Red Barn. Basically, if you were to look at the Pilgrim's Way back catalogue of songs that we've recorded, a great number of them, a large, large proportion were on that cassette tape.
00:06:09
Speaker
Yeah, there's been so much important music to you. I'm i'm really interested in why Dolly Parton has won out in in terms of being your survival song of choice. What made you choose this one? Oh, it's a good question. I mean, you know, I was the singer in the band and I still love singing and particularly that kind of style of ornamented folk singing is my absolute favourite thing in the world. And so as I sort of got more into, you know, performing folk songs, I was really influenced by Charnos music, by kind of Irish. singing unaccompanied voice with this beautiful kind of ornamented style um but actually when I look back it was very much inspired by Dolly Parton because you know she has the most phenomenal voice like I feel as though because she's such a larger than life character people sometimes kind of overlook how just immensely talented the woman is and like I truly truly believe that she is one of the the finest voices
00:07:05
Speaker
ever like on record I just think she's phenomenal um and yeah as a child I just desperately wanted to sound exactly like her and I would practice and practice in the car on these long journeys just trying to get all of her trills and vocal runs just whatever I could do to kind of um yeah because she's she's just incredible um and it's just a joyful it's a joyful song as well I mean the lyrics don't have any special meaning maybe we'll chat about that but But yeah, just as a kind of vocal performance, ah absolutely stunning. If it's not the lyrics that are doing it for you, is there like is there a bit? We always ask if there's a sort of...
00:07:42
Speaker
It's so often that there's a moment in a song that's like, here's my moment. Here's the bit that's for me. Is that is there a bit where you're like, it's that bit? Because there's so many steps in this song. like It it wrap ranks up, doesn't it? There's key changes, there's pianos, there's guitars. It's got it all. So what's the what's the moment for you? the intro That intro piano is is the bit that kind of signals to me that this is going to be good. like this is that I think it's survival in the sense of we have survived now. in order to sit I was thinking about this like earlier, I was trying to reflect on kind of what survival means to me, and and I was thinking that in the really dark times of my life when survival has felt like something that wasn't a given,
00:08:27
Speaker
I actually tended to turn away from music. It was almost a symptom of that kind of need to kind of to survive, that I would just shut music out. And I find music also just so kind of emotionally absorbing, like it's almost too much. And so those times when life has been really tough, I've sort of almost, yeah, ah protected myself in a way from listening to music. And so I think of that song, of particularly that opening bar, as being that kind of signal that life has carried on, like I'm all right, like it's it's okay now, we have survived, and and that's probably what I mean by survival.
00:09:06
Speaker
The lyrical content is totally yeah unrelatable to me. like It's about you know this woman who is you know is is is trying to get over a guy who she's really hung up on and every time she starts to like get herself back on her feet, starts to feel better. Inny walks again and she's like, oh my God, I'm back in this again. you know and like that is That is not currently my my existence. you know i'm I'm fairly contentedly. partnered up. So that's, that's not something I relate to particularly, but, um but yeah, just that kind of the the the the joyfulness of it. And although I think that the title kind of here, you come again, it kind of ends with and here I go. And I think it was probably lyrically intended to suggest, oh, and i've you know, i've I've gone again, I'm over, I'm head over heels in love again. But I always read it much more defiantly. I was like,
00:09:56
Speaker
here you come again and i'm off like i am leaving and that is still how i'm choosing to read it i don't think that's how the lyricist intended it but that is what i believe it's like you've come back sad you i'm out like i'm going that's so good i hear slightly different and i hear like here you come again and here i go it it's still an empowering choice but it's like i don't know for a song that defers so much to another person i I hear a lot of self-empowerment in it, so if your self-empowerment reading is, I'm off, and my self-empowerment reading is, I'm in, but it's my choice, and i'm very I have agency in this, and I feel good about it. Either way, it's interesting, isn't it, that a love song that so defers to another person is actually ends up being about her, which I really like.
00:10:46
Speaker
Yeah, totally. And I mean, returning to that question of what's the key moment for me, obviously we've got the opening bars. And then it's the bookend, it's the very end of it, because I love her improvisation. And again, it's returning to that my like obsession with vocal ornament, but she just does a fantastic kind of, and I won't attempt it, but it's just an incredible kind of vocal trill on the, and yeah and and here you come again, and here I go.
00:11:19
Speaker
Wow, it's just awesome. And I bet that she probably does it differently every time she does it. you know like If it's a live performance, you would not necessarily hear that exact ornament. But like for me, there's this one that I'm like, yeah, that is that is so good. That is so skilled. Awesome. And she is one of those artists, you're right, where you feel like the recording you're hearing is the only time you'll hear that version, which makes it all the more precious, doesn't it? it just comes so naturally out of her. She's just the most kind of like instinctively brilliant singer. I know I keep going on about this, but like she really, really is. it It's so easy for her. you It always appears to be so easy. There's no effort to any of it, which I think is always the mark of just like a particularly stunning artistic performance. The other thing I should say is that like yeah as a kid, I was obviously
00:12:05
Speaker
always very taken with her singing and wants to sound just like her. And I remember as quite a young child saying to my parents in the car, how come when she's singing this song, you can hear two voices. So like she's singing the main tune, but then there's like another tune that's like a little bit above. Obviously I'm referring to harmony, but my dear, dear parents, my father didn't go, oh, well, it will have been recorded twice. That's two lines of vocal. She's singing it once and then she'll have recorded it a second time. And that's been super fun. My father, he said, oh, it's because she's a really skilled singer. She can split her voice. She can do two parts at once. And so I then spent honestly weeks and months desperately trying to work out how she was achieving this like polyphony of voice. And like, I was really upset when I learned that that was like,
00:12:54
Speaker
total nonsense and not true at all. I love that moment of suspended imagination where you're like, anything's possible. Dolly Parton makes anything possible.
Defining a Survival Song
00:13:03
Speaker
I also don't want to let your comment of earlier go by without a little extra pointing out because I thought it was so beautiful what you said about what a survival song is or what survival is for you. and and I really resonate with the, yeah, i think I think when things are dark, I struggle to listen to to the weepy music. Ed and I talk about this quite a lot. I need the i need the big, bold brass or the the fast beat or the something that is so counter to how I'm feeling that it kind of pulls me somewhere else for a bit. And I can only really sit in the lyrical, slower, more weepy stuff. went That's usually a sign that I'm feeling better, actually. And and I'm wondering if that resonates.
00:13:46
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I was sort of, you know, I spent ages thinking about this. it's All of the kind of songs that initially came to mind were, you know, they were very loaded in content. They were songs that made me think of particular, you know, breakups or just really sad times. And I thought, you know, I could certainly talk about those. But it would almost not be, it would almost be untrue to say that they were my survival songs. They were the songs either that kept me feeling pretty crappy for a long period of time or, you know, that that that I only can listen to kind of afterwards and kind of reflect that that was kind of a song that that spoke to me at that moment. There's definitely something about, yeah, it's celebratory. I think that surviving can be pretty tricky for some of us sometimes. and
00:14:30
Speaker
and so to to sort of to come back to for me it's been a feeling of like coming back to myself something has been really crappy and then it's fat it's passed and and i'm back to me again and and so being able to to enjoy music again being able to get that joy is that shows in some way that yeah it's all right i've survived well i'm absolutely delighted you chose it and I always listen to the track before I speak to the guest but I don't always prance about a house like an idiot before speaking to the guest so thank you for providing a dance party moment this afternoon in my house and thanks so much for having this conversation.
Lucy's Invitation to Explore Her Work
00:15:07
Speaker
Where would our listeners follow you, find you, know what's going on? Oh I mean I
00:15:12
Speaker
So Instagram is probably the most up-to-date for me. I am at Lucy underscore J underscore right or my website is www.lucyright.art. I've got to say that I don't know whether from listening to this conversation you would immediately get a sense of what what my work looks like but um but maybe if you enjoy Dolly Parton you'd enjoy what I do. There's no direct link but... I think she's worth a google everyone. You've been an absolute joy.