PHOTO: JASON LEE DENTON
Nashville-based singer/songwriter Matt Lovell has unleashed “Alligator Lilly,” a sultry juxtaposition of beauty and danger, an allegory of lost innocence, and the newest single and video from his debut album, Nobody Cries Today, out on June 5th.
WATCH: “ALLIGATOR LILLY”
“Need some escapism? With his magnificent new video, Matt Lovell has you covered,” said PopDust in its premiere. “Inspired by Wes Anderson films and the ominous allure of Florida beaches, it's full of eye-candy visuals and striking, hypnotic imagery,” notes PopDust. “Sonically, the arrangement is soulful and simple but laden with teasing moments of dreamy synths that briefly open up the track to a more psychedelic plane. Thematically, the song explores the dichotomy between innocence and danger that defines so much of youth. The product was a joyful and exuberant single, a celebration of seduction and freedom, both spiritual and physical. In the days of social distancing, it feels like a time capsule of a former era, when we could just touch each other without risk—a time that will certainly come again, but that seems far away.” "Someone once told me that they couldn't tell if this song was really innocent or really risqué. And that's exactly what 'Alligator' has been from the moment we sat down to write it," Lovell said.
LISTEN: “ALLIGATOR LILLY”
Written with friends Mandy Cook and Tim Jackson, the song was inspired by a lake near the Gulf of Mexico in Florida's panhandle. "One day we were driving along the coast and passed a lake covered in lily pads—so many of them that you could hardly see the water," Lovell told PopDust. "When we noticed the lake was called Alligator Lake, we laughed about what a strange juxtaposition of danger and beauty this was. I started singing the opening lines 'Alligator Lilly, twinkle in your eye, tide is rolling in pulled by the moon up in the sky.' Mandy gasped and we were like two kids in that moment." They drove back to Jackson's house and told him they wanted to write a "silly song about lost virginity."
“Alligator Lilly” follows the video for the album’s soulful lead single “90 Proof,” which premiered via American Songwriter, written during attempts to let go of a relationship that had ended. “Just one listen to Lovell’s voice as he delivers assertive but smooth blue eyed-soul during the song’s conflicted refrain (‘I got 90 proof / that I ain’t over you’) and that’s all the authentic connection the song needs,” said American Songwriter. “Lovell knows how to tap into a part of himself that can bring the emotions of ’90 Proof’ to the surface and doing so is all the more honorable, knowing the story he’s trying to tell, isn’t a made up screenplay; it’s one man being willing to revisit challenging parts of his life and do so with performative solemnity and grace.”
WATCH: “90 PROOF”
LISTEN: “90 PROOF”
All but one of the album’s songs were recorded in 2016 - just months before Lovell nearly lost his life. On January 20, 2017, he was shot in the chest by a sixteen-year-old who attempted to steal his car. Miraculously, he lived. “This moment created a new center of gravity and re-ordered my understanding of everything I’ve experienced in this lifetime,” he explains. “Many people who experience acute trauma go through somewhat of a euphoric period immediately after the incident occurs, and this was definitely my experience. The level of peace I felt was something I had never touched before. I wrote profusely, I gardened, I brought new life and vigor to my musical ventures, and I made peace with complicated friendships. More than anything, I found a level of great self-acceptance and this created space for me to begin to learn how to live this life.”
This era ended with the abrupt onset of PTSD, causing the most difficult time Lovell had ever faced. He began to question everything and struggled to find a way to articulate the horrors he was experiencing. Now, on the other side of recovery, Lovell is excited to sing these songs again for anyone who will listen. “In these years of writing and recording, I have gathered quite a wild palette of paints,” he says. “In a way, Nobody Cries Today has actually been my teacher. As I have written these songs, each of them has been like a tiny rowboat to get me from one day to the next. They have witnessed me in the years that I was in the throes of trying to find acceptance for myself and for the world I’m living in. As a gay man of Southern origin, this proved to be a tall order. These songs have also helped me to explore things like zest for life, discontent, hunger, truth, and hope,” he continues. “Nobody Cries Today contains every bit of earnestness, desire, and love that I have to give.
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