Indigo

Following her break-up with fellow singer Indigo Sparke in 2020,

Adrianne Lenker retreated to an isolated, one-room cabin deep in

western Massachusetts and recorded her renowned album, songs, from

which she gave us “anything,” a raw indie-folk track with an earthy,

delicate feel. It is obvious from its lyrics that Lenker’s complicated

feelings surrounding Indigo and their separation are what spawned the

creation of the album. Lenker is sweet to Indigo in “anything,” and she

does not hesitate to name her explicitly. She speaks directly to Indigo,

not only in this track, but throughout the entire album. While using

names in her music is not a new approach for Lenker, songs does it in a

way that is distinct from the rest of her discography.

Interviewed shortly after the release of songs, Lenker said, “Maybe

I used fewer names, but in a way I feel it links more directly to actual

people than anything I’ve made before. It’s probably the most personal

thing that I’ve made.”

While Lenker’s other albums—both her solo work and the ones with

her band, Big Thief—do not shy away from addressing her personal

life, it is easy to understand why Lenker believes this about songs,

specifically. In many ways, her other work seems to focus on the past.

“Mythological Beauty,” from Big Thief’s 2017 album Capacity, details

moments in Lenker’s childhood. From her estranged brother that she’s

never met, to getting impaled by a railroad spike at age 5, all the lyrics speak of what happened to Lenker years ago. Many of the songs on her

2014 album, a-sides and besides, are similarly about past happenings.

While there are a handful of lyrics on songs that deal with Lenker’s

past—“half return,” for example, about childhood nostalgia and

returning to her home state of Indiana—the majority of the album is

either about or deeply influenced by Lenker’s current state of mind. In

the same interview, she stated, “These songs emerged from feeling a lot

of pain and a lot of grief internally, acknowledging a lot of feelings.”

Songs is intensely personal because Lenker is actively going through

what she is describing, and her fresh heartbreak is so obviously laced

into every word of lyric, into every inch of the album, and that, I think,

is why she resonated so strongly with me when I heard her music for

the first time. I was then 13, and one of her songs had come on during

Spotify’s automatic shuffle. I quickly understood that Lenker and I

had nothing in common. She was intimate, and gentle, and unafraid to

speak about her feelings, and I did not speak much at all back then. I

was quiet, and I was awkward, and I could go hours and hours without

saying a single word because to speak, to express myself unabashedly

the way Lenker did so easily, was terrifying to me. Perhaps my

obsession was partially fueled by the jealousy I held towards Lenker,

towards her seemingly effortless freedom and acts of expression. Some

of it, I’m sure, was just teenage fangirling, but it was also a lens into

a state of mind I was not familiar with. As in: I didn’t think I would

ever be able to allow myself to be seen the way Lenker boldly displays

herself in songs. So, by obsessing over the album, I was letting myself

become privy to a world very different from mine. I religiously listened

to Adrianne Lenker, and I prayed for a day to come when I wouldn’t

be scared anymore. If I could not be bold like Lenker was, I could

at least pore over her music, as if my obsession would allow me to

personify her.

I would listen to “forwards beckon rebound,” for example, a melodic

folk song with an acoustic sound that is rooted in Lenker’s religious

trauma and the act of moving on from her past, and despite the

incongruity of our experiences, I would find relatability in lyrics like,

“Pulling your face close, wanting the inmost / Show me / I’m not afraid

of you now.” The same went for tracks like “zombie girl” and “ingydar,”

and just about every other track on the album.

But, out of all of the 11 tracks featured on songs, “anything” has

always been my favorite. It’s Lenker’s most popular song, having

amassed almost 400 million streams over 6 years, and having almost

doubled the amount of streams of her second most popular song, “not a

lot, just forever.” It was not the first Adrianne Lenker song I had heard,

but it quickly became my most frequently repeated, because shortly

after I discovered Lenker’s music, I met a girl who allured me almost as much as songs had, and I found that my thoughts turned only to her

when I heard the opening chords of “anything.”

We met in October of our 8th grade year. We were paired together

for a group project, and I remember thinking that this girl, with a heap

of charms clipped to her backpack’s zipper, and a faint hue of purple

dye in the very ends of her blonde hair, might’ve been the coolest

person at our school. She was like an angel I was blessed just to be

witnessing. She was the subject of all the poorly written, attempted

poetry that littered my notes app and all my notebooks. She was as

infatuating to me as Lenker was.

Thinking about her was easy. She was not anything like me. She

was kind and gentle in the same way Lenker is in “anything;” and,

as convoluted as it sounds, she was, in a way, my version of Lenker’s

“Indigo.” In one of my sappy, middle school-ish poems about her, I

even used “Indigo” as her code name. Using her real name was a bit too

serious for me, I guess.

She was all I thought of when I listened to “anything,” and lyrics like

“I don’t wanna talk about anything / I wanna kiss, kiss your eyes again”

took on new meaning when I was around her.

My “Indigo” was human in a way I longed to be. People seemed to

be drawn to her, and it was effortless for her to talk to strangers, and

effortless for her to be liked by strangers, and she wanted to be around

me.

She invited me to eat lunch with her and her friends, and she sought

me out to sit next to in our shared classes, and she grinned at me

valiantly when I complimented her nails, or her outfit, and she would

always compliment me right back.

But that did not make my anxiety dissipate. Something as simple as

a crush could not change a part of me that has always existed. I think I

must’ve been born already fearful, because I cannot remember a time

when I have lived unafraid to speak. I have been consumed by this fear

my whole life, and it has ruined me over and over again.

So, while my fixation with Lenker has remained to this day,

the same cannot be said for me and my “Indigo.” It was my fault,

almost certainly, that our friendship fell apart, because I never really

approached her outside of class. I never got to know most of her friends.

I never took her up on her lunch invitations. The act of going up to her

and sitting at her table felt impossible, even if she wanted me there.

What if pulling up a chair next to her just annoyed her? What if she

was just being nice, and didn’t really want me to sit with her? Maybe

it’s stupid to be anxious over something so simple and so effortless for

everyone else, but it felt like some invisible being had forced a painfully

tight hand over my mouth, because I couldn’t make myself speak even

when I desperately wanted to. And what was I supposed to do? I wasn’t ready to face my fears. Had she ever had to face her fears? Had she

already fought against them and won? If she had, then what would

she think of me, still stuck and unable to move forward? I couldn’t act

like how she wanted me to act. I couldn’t be normal and go up to her

like she could so easily do to me. I have never been normal, and I have

known that since I was in third grade and seated in some psychologist’s

brightly-colored office. I have known that since the pool of dread in my

stomach became permanent.

Our friendship started in October, and ended somewhere in the early

weeks of April. It was short-lived, and now all that it will ever be is

awkward, even now that we are older.

I’m sure she thought I was just avoiding her out of spite, or needless

cruelty, or that I was just a mean person, at heart. I wasn’t trying to be

mean. I was just scared, and I know now that my fear does not purify

me, but how could I ever be as nice and as gentle as she was when I was

always so afraid of everything? It didn’t seem feasible.

I continued to overplay “anything,” and lyrics like “But I couldn’t say

the words like you / I was scared, indigo, but I wanted to,” served only

as reminders of her and everything I had done wrong.

Sometimes, when I listen to songs, all I can think about is being 13

and writing bad poetry about a girl in my math class. It is hard to move

on from previous connotations, but, recently, I’ve found myself being

able to listen to songs all the way through without thinking about my

“Indigo” at all. Recently, I have found myself able to talk to anyone with

barely any panic in my way.

Songs is my favorite of Lenker’s work because she did not wait for

time to pass before detailing her and Indigo’s breakup into words. She

did her time in that isolated cabin, and she faced whatever grief she

felt head on. She chose to speak freely, to be intensely and publicly

vulnerable in songs, and if she was ever scared to do so, she was able to

move past her worries.

I am not at all like Adrianne Lenker. I was not as brave as she was,

and maybe I never will be. It has taken me years to even try to be. And, while I can’t go back in time and change how I dealt with my middle-

school crush, I think, now that it is on paper, I can leave it behind me and finally start thinking about the present.