Shelby Lynne’s Personal, Yet Universal Truths
Waiting for Shelby Lynne is nerve-racking. Will she be sassy? Will she be sweet? Will she be impatient? Will she be understanding? By the time her given name “Shelby Moorer” flashes on the Zoom screen, I’m kind of a mess. I was up half the night watching When We Kill the Creators, the 2020 Cynthia Mort feature film starring the Grammy-winning Lynne, a quiet story of a musician with a debilitating substance abuse problem at odds with her record industry team.
“Shelby…I love your album,” I gush, of her latest album, Consequences of the Crown, which is a masterpiece. That gets a big smile out of Lynne, who is casual in a Philadelphia Football cap and blue sweatshirt over which a long gold chain hangs. Lynne is barefaced. Her eyes look like she’s either getting ready to cry, or just finished crying. During our conversation, she hovers over the cry line several times. Her camera is shaky, which, strangely, helps when speaking about sensitive topics. Lynne doesn’t shy away from anything. Even when the questions are innocuous, in her responses, Lynne rips off her skin to show what’s underneath.
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Lynne returned to Nashville after a quarter-century of living in California. She moved to be near her sister, Grammy-nominated country artist and author Alison Moorer, whom Lynne calls “Sissy,” and with whom she is currently writing an album. Lynne lived in Nashville when she released her first five albums. None of those came close to the mainstream recognition of her landmark album, I Am Shelby Lynne, which celebrated its 25th anniversary earlier this year with a reissue. In a way, Nashville takes the artistic pressure off Lynne, which, in turn, allows her to be her most vulnerable.
I Am Shelby Lynne is connected to Consequences of the Crown by “But I Ain’t,” which interpolates “Dreamsome” from the former. “It was kind of a Taylor Swift moment,” says Lynne, who recorded “But I Ain’t” when she was told she didn’t have the rights to “Dreamsome.” There are many bold creative choices on Consequences of the Crown. Lynne felt empowered to make these, flanked by her co-songwriters and co-producers Little Big Town’s Karen Fairchild plus country artist Ashley Monroe and producer/engineer Gena Johnson.
Without this team, the songs on Consequences of the Crown might have been recorded by other people, as Lynne’s initial intention in writing them was to snag a publishing deal. It’s clear only Lynne was meant to sing these very personal, yet universal truths. While Lynne fits into the intersectionality of queer/recovering addict/abuse survivor, to her it’s just the honesty of sharing her lived pain.
“Enough! Enough! Enough!” she yells, but it’s just at her dog and Sissy’s dog, who are barking up a storm. “Sorry about that. Umm…where were we?”
How did it feel going back to Nashville after being in California for so long?
Shelby Lynne: It felt good, and it felt right. I’m an instinct person. I go by what’s in my heart. Sometimes that’s not always good. It’s not the wisest thing. It’s like falling in love with the wrong people. It’s like going against what you know is not good for you. It’s, “I can change this.” No you can’t. You can’t change anybody. You can’t change any plans because it’s already laid out in front of us. We don’t have anything to do with it. We think we might. We have no control over anything, especially art. I had no plans to make any record, but then the songs were telling me, “You need to make a record.”
I have let go of a lot of things. In the last couple of years being here, I’m trying
to take care of myself a little bit better and not be so people-pleasing. The only time I haven’t done anything people-pleasing is on my records. Being honest with my story and where I am now, it’s still a little bit of a surprise, but I am trying to go with whatever it is.
It’s difficult deciding to take care of yourself. What if you don’t do it right? What if you do it and it doesn’t work? It’s almost easier to avoid doing it.
Isn’t that the truth? We can be misunderstood so easily because we forgot the way to communicate. Doing records and putting records out is baring your soul, at least for me. Every time I’m getting ready to do an interview, forgive me, I lose a little bit of my life. I get scared and I get nervous because there have been times when I’ve been either happy with a record or not happy with a record or drunk or just unhappy with life. The difference is [that] I’m sober, which is a big deal. I’m unable to cloud up the reality of what I’m doing. Liquor presented me with a problem. I finally got over that hump. I quit clouding up my realities. But I’m sure there’s a lot of people going, “Well, I thought she was gone.” At times I thought I was too. Any of this is not a plan. It’s just the way things are mapped out.
How long have you been sober?
Two years.
What made you decide to get sober?
Just sick of falling down drunk. How’s that? I’m not kidding. It was getting bad. Of course I was in a shit relationship, so that didn’t help, and I’d been in that too long. I had gotten in a bad situation. You lose a part of yourself if you’re in a bad situation. COVID came, and I’m like, “Whoo-hoo! I don’t have to see anybody. I’ll just get shit-faced every day, every night.” I think a lot of people did that. COVID was nothing more for me than a typical drunk’s holiday.
There’s so much honesty and authenticity on the album, which you’ve always had, but there’s something about the delivery that feels so direct, like there’s nothing between you and the listener.
I moved back to be quiet. I didn’t really want to do the record-business thing anymore. I had put that behind me. We just started out writing songs together. I wanted to do something that sonically was different. I didn’t want a bunch of pickers. I didn’t want to have a bunch of sessions. I just wanted to be with my girls. These songs are good enough to cut. That wasn’t a definitive plan in the beginning. Of all the records I’ve made in my life, they have not all been fun. There have been reasons why every time. But this one was fun because my girls and I got up in there and we did what we enjoy.
Our womanly powers and being in an environment that allowed, “I’m just going to do whatever in the hell I feel because I’m so broken, I don’t have anything to lose.”
There is a sparsity to the album, but at the same time there are orchestral elements, both of which serve the songs well. How were the sonic choices made?
Sonically what I wanted was an R&B/beatbox vibe. We decided the lyrics and the music were more important than showcasing guitar licks. Nothing against pickers. We all love them, and Lord knows, we have friends that are the best pickers on the planet here, but it really wasn’t that kind of record. I know it doesn’t make sense to come to Nashville and not make a chicken-picking record, but I just didn’t want to. I’ve done that for 18,19 albums. I wanted to do something that I really was moved by. I don’t listen to a lot of chicken picking like I did when I was 10. Hip hop, R&B, and the current Billie Eilish stuff is what I dig. I loved the [new] Beyoncé record. I thought it was brilliant. We did everything that suited the song. I don’t think any of them are alike. The only thing that’s a thread in there would be me. The record is about pain and heartbreak and losing, redemption at the end with “Dear God” going, “Thanks for giving me another chance,” because I recognize that I’m grateful.\
It sounds like there was a lot of trust in the sessions. Do you think it made a difference having an all-woman creation team?
When I started making records, there would be no possibility to ever have a say in anything, period. It was, “A man’s going to produce it. A man’s going to play it. A man’s on the songs. Man’s going to tell you to sing it. A man’s going to do this.” A man, a man, a man, a man, a fucking man. When I left Nashville, it was still a man, a man, a man, a man, a man, a man, a man, a man. It’s not that way anymore. Women run everything. And that’s the difference. Hell yeah, that’s why it felt right. Hell yeah, that’s why it felt safe. Hell yeah, that’s why the songs were so honest and autobiographical. Here’s some pain on a platter for you. That’s how we looked at it. And they nursed me back to health. They saw me at my worst. It was worst in the moment because I was freezing and shaking, in disbelief at how I could be, as a human being, tossed like I had never been there, and to hurt to be mad. Now I’m able to be mad, but I wasn’t then. So the girls not only were there with me at my worst, but we [also] made a fun-ass record. We’re extremely proud of this work. It’s not anything against our man friends, but this particular record couldn’t have happened any other way.
Were there musical, and non-musical, things you learned from them during the process?
Yeah. I have all kinds of problems. I’ve got patience problems. I’ve got temper problems. Even though I’m a 56-year-old woman, I can revert back to 8-year-old-ism real quick. It’s why I don’t have children. It’s why I don’t have a husband. It’s why I don’t have a wife. It’s a choice. I wish I could be as cool and calm-headed as Karen Fairchild because she’s like the Dalai Lama of the group. The other two kept me calm. It was truly like a cheerleading session every time.
You had a great line in this interview for The Boot: “Music is a great place to hide our stories.” Considering how open you are in your songs, that seems contradictory.
I’ve tried for years to write a book, but I just can’t do it. A songwriter is where I prefer to stay because of exactly what you just said. There’s always room for the listener to put their life in, and that’s the most important thing. I don’t mind sharing my pain because I know there’s somebody out there that might hear it that is hurting just as bad or doesn’t even know they’re hurting that bad yet. I have seen so many people with broken hearts. Everybody’s treated everybody like shit in relationships. Writing a song about it and going, “I’m freezing, I’m shaking, I’m freezing, and I’m shaking, and you are the only one that knows the truth with me because it’s the truth we know—nobody else is going to know how shitty you were.” That shit takes you down. I’m trying to write songs about how bad I feel because of it. I’m lucky I get to write songs and put it out into the world. Maybe somebody will go, “Thank you for writing that.” But you got to live it to write it. I will stand by that ‘til end of time.
You’re not going to write a book, but you started a Substack. How come?
It’s kind of like a diary for the hardcore ones that really want to hear what I have to say. I probably wouldn’t say it anywhere else. For some reason, it feels private for me. The minute it doesn’t, I’ll be gone like a scalded dog out of there. But I feel like it’s a little, tiny secret, and people that have it, have it. I don’t do it very often. I’m not disciplined. I don’t say I’m going to do it every week. I do it when I feel like it, and I think people appreciate that.
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