by Lydia Pudzianowski (@doritoshangover)
On “Backseat Driver,” the eponymous opener of Philly songwriter Lily McKown’s debut LP, McKown sings, “I’m a backseat driver and I’m dying for control / I don’t know who’s steering my wheels, but I know how I wanna feel […] Wish I could tell you how I wanna feel.” It’s the perfect thesis statement for the songs that follow, a series of meditations on being influenced by your surroundings in a way you can’t necessarily control—or can you? That gray area is what McKown is tangling with here. How do you separate yourself from your upbringing? The result is Backseat Driver, a beautiful dispatch from a passive participant who’s actively observing everything around her as she decides what her next steps are.
As the only girl on most of her sports teams growing up, McKown knows something about having to unlearn learned behavior in order to figure out what’s actually in your best interest. “Can’t think for myself when everyone’s talking over me […] I was playing with the wrong toys,” she sings in “Metal in the Outlet” as she recalls a real childhood experience: being dared to literally stick metal into an electrical outlet by a bunch of boys.
Backseat Driver is a record with more standout tracks than not, like “B Team” and “Ghost Town” (which features Joe Michelini, AKA American Trappist, who produced, engineered, and mixed the album at New Jersey's Berlin Studios). One of them, “Virginia Lovers,” is an impressive five minutes of smart, poetic encapsulations of what it feels like to be constantly searching, learning, and bumping up against other people doing the exact same thing on a wave of alcohol—“dropping names of people you should have forgotten by now.” It’s soundtracked by wavering strings that echo the uncertainty of the future.
Even though they have an intimate, lo-fi feel, to call these songs confessional isn’t quite right. They’re more like dispatches from a keen observer as opposed to someone with a formulated plan of action. McKown says it loud and clear herself in “Circle of Misery”: “I’ve gotta figure out what I want.” Sometimes, her lyrics are straightforward like this, and sometimes they’re an expertly assembled metaphor; she’s equally good at delivering both.
This is a strong debut from an artist whose time as a benchwarmer is clearly coming to an end. It’s genuine and a little rough around the edges, but there’s a real power to the period of discovery that McKown is relaying. Things aren’t, in fact, set in motion, and you have more control than you realize—and she’s starting to realize it. This is an artist, and a woman, discovering who she is and what she wants in real time. Paired with her musical talent, it’s a pleasure to witness. Backseat Driver is a victory lap from an outsider coming into her own.