We’re finally at the point in January when even the most dogged holdouts pull down their holiday light displays, and as fraught Christmas is for me, I love the lights and if I could remake society I’d have everyone’s light displays run the whole of winter.
We’ve pulled down most of our decorations save for the string of lights in the living room, and if it were merely up to me I’d just keep them there. Eventually they will come down.
The lights first went up in November, around the same time I was putting the finishing touches on writing my newest song, the first song I’ve completed in three years: “(I Want You To Fuck Me) Sunday Morning.”
Since then, I’ve performed that song in public twice and wrote about in Popula. I recorded the song in December, and in February I’ll be releasing it as a single ahead of the release of my album March 1.
This is a record-setting record for me; myabe the fastest I’ve ever released a song after finishing the writing. This kind of momentum is tantalizing; maybe a little addictive.
I’m so proud of this song and if I didn’t use the F word 26 times (and/or if the U.S. hadn’t been founded by Puritans) maybe it could be a radio hit.
Speaking of radio, an old friend left me a lovely note on Instagram, telling me a story that she wanted to tell me in person if were ever in the same town again. A few years ago, away from her own home and tending to extended family matters in Ohio, she heard me on a program on NPR, talking about my band Santa LIbrada. She said she cried, hearing me on the radio. I was stunned to hear that I was on the radio in Ohio; I cannot for the life of me remember when I did an NPR spot talking about Santa Librada and I’m burning with curiosity to know what it was.
One of my regrets with Santa Librada is that we never recorded any of our covers, and our slight revision of Neil Young’s “Ohio” was a really important performance for me, in that I had revised the lyrics to focus on the steady increase in murders of trans people worldwide — but also in the state of Ohio, which has long been an especially deadly state for trans women.
Strangely, I don’t seem to have handy the final version of the lyrics I’d perform when we did “Ohio” live. All I can find in my notebook app is an early draft. The first line refers, of course, to Leelah Alcorn.
“Little Leelah on the interstate and
Rae’Lynn Thomas in her own home
Not much more we can take
More dead in Ohio”
I keep listening to this album of mine and I’m really excited that I’m finally going to get to share this with you. I want to keep the lights up until the release date. March 1. The homestretch of winter.
