Today, Iowa singer-songwriter, Lissie, has released her new album When I’m Alone: The Piano Retrospective via Cooking Vinyl. For Lissie, her past—the last decade or so, to be specific—is something still very much alive and open to interpretation and rephrasing. With When I’m Alone: The Piano Retrospective, she is showing listeners that her past is hardly static, that the songs she wrote nearly 10 years ago are still fresh and vibrant, evoking a feeling of old and new.
From the gentle piano intro of the first track “Don’t You Give Up On Me” (from 2016’s My Wild West), it’s evident this isn’t a mere retread or reboot of past successes, but, in fact, a refashioning and recentering of her past. She removes the driving backbeat and the bombastic flourishes from the original to expose a gentle and plaintive, emotion-drenched song that pleads and tugs. Other songs that are disrobed include“Sleepwalking” (from 2013’s Back to Forever), “Best Days” (from 2018’s Castles), “In Sleep” (from her 2010 debut Catching a Tiger). and a heartfelt remake of Dixie Chick‘s “Cowboy Take Me Away.” Bound to repeat her track record with Fleetwood Mac covers (her cover of “Go Your Own Way” remains as her most streamed track), Lissie’s cover of “Dreams” gorgeously plays tribute to the Stevie Nicks-led song without copying it note-for-note.
When I’m Alone: The Piano Retrospective
is available to stream and purchase here:
https://lissie.lnk.to/WIAYo