Lost Lake Presents Olivia Barton – For Myself and For You Tour with Bridey Costello on Friday, February 6th.
Sometimes it seems like everything has been said before. And then sometimes you hear a song that speaks so directly and honestly to experience, it reveals the deep and profound humanity in everyday language and life. On her third album For Myself and For You—a record about no longer bullshitting yourself about your life, your struggles, or your love—Olivia Barton does it time and time again. Across its 12 songs, Barton is unflinching, first with herself, and then with the world around her. She sets her gaze inwards and she does not blink. The result is a delicate but powerful collection about queer love, family life, heartbreak, aging, anxiety, and body image that are startling in their directness and crushing in their emotional weight.
Barton’s commitment to honesty and clarity is the guiding principle of For Myself and For You. That commitment forms not just her approach to lyric-writing, but also the way she composes her music. “I’m always improvising melody and lyrics simultaneously,” she says, “which creates such a marriage between them that you couldn’t take one out of the other.” This approach means her melodies sound natural and fluid, as if they themselves are writing the words. That ease of creation, and her voice’s simple elegance, can almost disguise the heaviness of what Barton is singing–though not quite. “I want to recognize myself,” she sings in “My First House,” wandering through her childhood home years after it’s been sold, confronted with the passage of time. “The playroom is an office now,” she observes, in a way that is both casual and devastating. For Myself and For You is full of moments like this. “All I want is you to notice when I leave the room,” she sings in “Matter to You,” co-written with Madi Diaz; Barton also co-wrote “Everything Almost” on Diaz’s LP Weird Faith and “Movie Star” on Lizzy McAlpine’s LP Older, and has supported both on North American tours. It’s a straightforward lyric on paper, but takes on tremendous weight as she unspools it into the song’s still air. “Anyone could say that, it’s not a clever phrase at all,” Barton says. “But I’m always in pursuit of a line like that: something everybody’s saying, but nobody’s singing.”
“I’m not trying to show off,” Barton says, though that should be obvious by now. “I’m trying to clear away everything that gets in the way of the song. It allows much more room for what’s actually being talked about,” she continues. “And that’s what I care about more than anything else.” That means being able to speak the truth plainly and clearly, both for one’s self and for the people you love. Only then can you come to terms with who you are and where you find yourself. “The truth can’t travel backwards,” she sings in the closing track of For Myself and For You, “The Hardest Thing,” “and that’s gonna have to be OK.”
- All ages, ticketed guests under 16 ONLY ADMITTED WITH TICKETED GUARDIAN 21+
- All sales are final. Check your tickets carefully, NO REFUNDS FOR ANY REASON
- Your name will be on the Will Call list the night of the show at doors time.
