It’s been two years since indie-pop group TEEN announced that after nearly a decade as a band—and much longer as sisters—they had arrived at their dissolution, stating “the music industry is not always kind and challenges our health and well being.” Now, from her New York apartment, former TEEN-member and Halifax-export Lizzie Lieberson, AKA Lizzie Loveless, has been piecing it all back together, embracing new relationships, looking back on what has passed with a sense of the bittersweet, and moving forward into the unknown.
Loveless’ latest single, “The Joke,” is a big part of moving forward or, at least, addressing those challenges to her health and well-being and how there’s no betrayal quite like the betrayal of your own body.
Following up on her previously released singles of “Window” and “Loveless,” two songs that are, essentially, about having lost control in a relationship of one kind or another, “The Joke” is, similarly, about a certain loss of control. The single has Loveless wrestling with a crisis that has impacted not just her health, but her career and sense of self.
Lieberson opens the song with lines that are going to sound painfully familiar to anyone who has had the rug pulled out from under their lives like that:
“I’m a phony,
Oh, I’m lonely,
If you take it all from me,
You’ll leave here with nothing,
A sad stack of bones,
I see her in the corner,
What a shameful thing to boast,
The most confused woman”
“About three years ago I had some health issues,” says Lieberson, “I was on tour, about four days in with my band TEEN, when it finally reached its peak and it became very clear I wouldn’t be able to continue the tour. I had to come home and face it. I was living with something that was out of my control. It occupied my every waking moment. This was the tipping point and my body was demanding me to pay attention.
“I felt betrayed by my own body. Both physically and mentally. Every time I gained some momentum and felt hopeful, things would regress. And the fact that I put so much energy into that hope, made me feel like a fool, like a joke. However, this song is also about trying to find comfort in the ones you love. I was so lucky to have the support of my partner, who helped me get through one of the most difficult times in my life. The entire experience made me have an incredible amount of gratitude for the people closest to me.”
Lieberson says that it took her months and an entire change of lifestyle for her to get back to a “healthy, functional place.”
“I was in the thick of it. Feeling hopeless. Or when I did feel hopeful and thought things were improving, and then it got bad again, I felt like a fool,” she says. “I felt all at once weightless and like I was sinking.”
The journey, however, has given her a new perspective and a sense of vulnerability that comes through in her music. Naturally, it comes with a massive change, and looking back doesn’t come without pain, but Lieberson says she’s ready for it.
“It was such a time of big change and endings but also new beginnings,” says Lieberson. “I was sad but I was ready to move forward. And I think this is a pretty revealing glimpse into who I am.”
“I’m now in a completely different place, a much better, healthier place.”
That change includes a massive step forward for Lieberson, having just signed with Richmond, Virginia-based label Egghunt Records ahead of the release of her upcoming album You Don’t Know. The full album is set to be released on September 17, 2021 and we can already tell you that it is one to look forward to.