Singer/songwriter Merce Lemon sits down with Atwood Magazine for a candid conversation about growth, songwriting, Pittsburgh, and her third album ‘Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild’ – a tender tempest full of intimate explosions, raw emotion, and soul-stirring indie folk sound.
‘Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild’ – Merce Lemon
I’m the bird that sings so goddamn loud, it wakes you up at dawn…
Merce Lemon’s third studio album can best be described as a tender tempest, much like nature itself.
There’s a softness to her songwriting and a gentle grace to her vocal performance, yet her songs themselves are all intimate explosions – nine beautifully vulnerable, achingly expressive upheavals full of raw emotion and stirring indie folk sound. The Pittsburgh native poured her unabridged, unfiltered self into Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild, reflecting on four years of growth, change, and life’s endless churn as she navigated a pandemic that upended her reality, a homecoming that returned her to her roots, and the person she became throughout that process.
It’s the music of a restless heart and a racing mind; the cathartic and charged release of a soul forever searching herself and scouring her world for meaning, for answers to questions she may not have fully grasped, but feels innately in her bones.
I am aimless in my lovin’
Caught the tail end of your set
Before I went to bed
But I don’t get out much
Met a lover in my backyard
Watching from my room
Honey I’ll come down soon
Now I am falling to a dark place
Where just remembering her death’s
About all I can take
But I don’t get out much
Is being swallowed by a room
Supposed to feel this way?
Maybe I’ll come out, babe
– “Backyard Lover,” Merce Lemon
Released September 27, 2024 via Darling Recordings, Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild is as dramatic as it is dreamy, and as unflinching as it is all-consuming. Arriving four long years after her sophomore LP Moonth, Merce Lemon’s third album is a comforting, cozy blanket of twangy, country-inspired indie folk music steeped in inescapable feelings of “belonging and longing.” The stillness of an uncertain existence (and an unknown future) crashes up against the inevitable movement of time as Lemon herself navigates an ebb and flow over which she has limited control; we of course try to be our own guides and embrace what agency we have in our lives, but we’re still at the mercy of outside forces. At the end of the day, we’re all just doing what we can to survive and thrive.
It’s a truth Lemon herself knows all too well; after releasing her last album (in August of 2020), the singer/songwriter stepped away from music to pursue other passions.
“I was at odds with being a musician,” she recalls. “I wasn’t really sure if that was something I was going to follow, and I was kind of exploring other options. I think I just didn’t want to be defined by that one thing, so I was curious what other interests I could throw myself into. I started landscaping the first summer of the pandemic; it’s my fourth year landscaping now. That introduced me to a lot of people who really care about plants and know a lot about plants. That was a huge introduction to being a little more in touch with nature, which I’ve always loved, but having a deeper connection and understanding to it. I was just doing a lot of outdoors stuff and I was playing a lot less music, and when I was playing music, it was kind of just for myself.”
“This space was necessary, and it’s nice to have other interests to fall back on. I got really into spoon carving, so I was carving wooden spoons a lot, there was a whole winter I did that, and all of those things I think ended up in my songs. It’s nice; playing music is so uncertain that I don’t think I’m ever going to put all of my eggs in that basket. I’m going to put my heart into it, but I don’t want it to be this thing that, if for some reason it’s not working out or something, there’s still a lot of things that make me feel alive and I can pursue.”
Unencumbered by expectations and without any pressure to deliver a record, Lemon let songs come to her naturally – and they did, slowly and steadily, until she had amassed enough material to start thinking of a record. “It’s kind of the perfect way to write, even though I don’t think I realized it and was as intentional with it at the time,” she says. “Organically, it was the perfect timing of things to feel inspired.”
Old man howling
Laughing his teeth out
With the dogs down the hill
And a tree fell, I smell the wood
And the bark is coming off
I write my words down on it
And honestly
The thoughts of a husband
Weighing on me
I smell the wood
Lime zest on a bed of leaves
Frozen over by the creek
I write my words down honest
Within Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild are stories of solitude and candid reflection from Lemon’s bedroom; of observations from her time out in nature and helping out on friends’ farms; and of exploration beyond her home, reaching out into that wider world and allowing its endless potential and possibility to fill her own with feeling. We hear her unpack grief and loss, work through loneliness and despair, face fear and hope head-on, and more.
“The way that I relate to music is very emotional, and so I hope it evokes that in other people, and maybe helps you feel things that you needed to feel or see things a different way or notice things when you’re walking around – just helping you be more present, which is something I was trying to do through my songwriting,” Lemon shares. “I still feel very emotional when playing some of these songs. Recently I played a show and I was having a really hard life moment, and I was soundchecking and could barely sing some of the songs without crying, so they’re still very raw with me, too, and I hope that people can feel that and interpret them the way they need to in their own lives.”
Atwood Magazine recently caught up with Merce Lemon to talk about her approach to songwriting, some old and new musical inspirations, and the long and winding journey to her third studio album. Dive into Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild in our interview below, and catch her on tour this fall!
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:: stream/purchase Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild here ::
:: connect with Merce Lemon here ::
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“Backyard Lover” – Merce Lemon
A CONVERSATION WITH MERCE LEMON
Atwood Magazine: Merce, thank you so much for your time today! Your third album, Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild, is fast approaching. How do you feel as we get closer and closer to this release date?
Merce Lemon: I don’t even know yet! I think I’m excited, but I’m also a little nervous, so I just am going with the flow, I would say, and not putting too much pressure on it. But I’m excited for the whole thing to be out and for people to hear it.
Is that similar to how you've felt around past releases, or is this a new relaxed state?
Merce Lemon: No, I think I just feel more pressure, so I’m trying avert that pressure a little bit. I’m kind of just excited to see how people respond to it!
This is your third LP following Ideal for a Light Flow with Your Body and Moonth. How does Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild compare to your last two record?
Merce Lemon: You can hear how I’ve matured in terms of my songwriting. And in the classic artist conundrum, I think it best represents myself, even though I have a hard time listening to my old music, even though I know it holds a place for other people. I just feel closer to this one than any of the other ones at this point, and just proud of the growth over the span of, I don’t know – I put out Ideal when I was 20 years old or something, so it’s been seven years!
Your first record felt very much like a kind of a coming-of-age story, and on Moonth you developed and added to those themes. What is the story of Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild?
Merce Lemon: This one was written over the past three or four years. I’ve never set out to write a record, and this is kind of the same as all of the other times, where once I reach a certain amount of songs is when I’m like, oh, maybe I should start working towards it being a record. This one just somehow, because of where I was at in my life and maybe how I understood myself better, feels like the most cohesive one in terms of its themes and imagery, I guess.
Most of the songs, except one, were written in deep pandemic and coming out of the deep pandemic. I wasn’t playing shows. So I wasn’t around people playing music, it was very like kind of more of a solo endeavor. And I was just outside a lot more ’cause I didn’t have a job and I was getting that pandemic unemployment. So it was kind of like, I wish that I could have that to write my next record, like getting unemployment and being able to explore in such a free way. It’s kind of the perfect way to write, even though I don’t think I realized it and was as intentional with it at the time. It just kind of organically was the perfect timing of things to feel inspired.
It feels very much like we’re listening to your diary at times, through this record. What were you going through at the time, that really kind of bled into these songs?
Merce Lemon: I think I was at odds with being a musician. I wasn’t really sure if that was something I was going to follow, and I was kind of exploring other options… I think I just didn’t want to be defined by that one thing. So I was curious what other interests I could throw myself into. I started landscaping the first summer of the pandemic; it’s my fourth year landscaping now. That introduced me to a lot of people who really care about plants and know a lot about plants. That was a huge introduction to being a little more in touch with nature, which I’ve always loved, but having a deeper connection and understanding to it, and also being surrounded by farmers, so I was helping on friends’ farms. I was just doing a lot of outdoors stuff and I was playing a lot less music, and when I was playing music, it was kind of just for myself.
That was definitely very influential to the whole process, and I think that enough time passed and I really miss playing shows and being around the energy of other people doing this thing that I do love, but that this space was necessary and that it’s nice to have other interests to fall back on. I got really into spoon carving, so I was carving wooden spoons a lot – there was a whole winter I did that, and all of those things I think ended up in my songs. It’s nice; playing music is so uncertain that I don’t think I’m ever going to put all of my eggs in that basket. I’m going to put my heart into it, but I don’t want it to be this thing that, if for some reason it’s not working out or something, there’s still a lot of things that make me feel alive and I can pursue.
Playing music is so uncertain that I don’t think I’m ever going to put all of my eggs in that basket. I’m going to put my heart into it, but I don’t want it to be this thing that, if for some reason it’s not working out or something, there’s still a lot of things that make me feel alive and I can pursue.
How did you get into writing songs in the first place? Has it always been a kind of diary or therapy for you?
Merce Lemon: Yeah, I’ve always written from a very personal place, though not everything is complete fact, it’s often very inspired by my own experiences. That is something that I’ve been trying to challenge myself to do… “Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild,” the title track, is one of the first times that I was like, what is it like to write not totally from my POV, though I inevitably have parts of myself in that song and it probably switches characters. A lot of my songwriting is very personal, and maybe that’s because I’m writing what I know, and also it’s often the music that I respond to the most in other people’s writing.
I've long been fascinated by your songwriting style, because it’s not only very personal, but it also feels very vulnerable and relatable. Who are some of your favorite artists and songwriters? Do you have any ‘north stars’ whom you look up to or hope to emulate?
Merce Lemon: I’ve probably mentioned this one a lot, but a huge part of my childhood was growing up with Kimya Dawson and The Moldy Peaches – Kimya writes from such a raw and beautiful point of view, and her songwriting has been hugely influential.
But also, old country music in general – like, those deep blues songs that are just so heartbreaking, I think I’ve always had an affinity for really sad stuff, even when I was really young… I had a really happy, loving childhood but I was really drawn to this darkness and sadness, and then when I experienced the loss of a friend, I think I came to understand that more, but before that it was more like a fascination with it, and I would write from those perspectives, but I don’t even know if I understood them… Like when I was writing poems when I was 10 or something, I don’t know where that sadness came from.
That’s always curious to me… Kids are in touch with another plane that we’ll never understand. I guess I’ll throw out the obvious one like Will Oldham, who’s under Bonnie Prince Billy and all those names, him and Bill Callaghan or Smog, I really look up to them as songwriters. Their imagery and also their matter-of-factness sometimes – I love when people just say a thing, even if it’s like kind of abrasive. Those are the ones I grew up on, and now I’m very inspired by a lot of friends and peers who are making music now too.
A lot of my songwriting is very personal, and maybe that’s because I’m writing what I know, and also it’s often the music that I respond to the most in other people’s writing.
I often find that I vacillate between songwriters who are hyper-direct, and those whose lyrics are incredibly obscure – where I have no idea what a song means to them, but I know how it makes me feel.
Merce Lemon: I don’t always feel the need to completely understand what a song means. I think oftentimes it’s just like the feeling a song evokes or like a line that hits you in the right way. It’s like fun to pick apart songs, but like to understand it completely, I don’t think it’s necessary.
I think a lot of times when I think of the songs that make me cry, it more often than not has nothing to do with the lyrics and everything to do with the melody and the harmonies, that it’s like, hits you in a certain way. And I could like, they could be saying anything. And it’s just like a tone. And potentially it’s sad, but not always. And I also love songs that have maybe like happy lyrics, but the tone and feeling of the song is like the opposite. It’s kind of like playing with that.
I wholeheartedly agree. What I really enjoy about your music, to bring it back, is that you play with mood a lot in your music, in your songwriting. Is that a conscious thing to do when you're toying with those things or is it very much like, the melody comes to you and you're writing what's coming out?
Merce Lemon: I think it’s pretty unconscious. I’ve had moments where I’m like, ‘Okay, I’m gonna try to write a happy song,’ because that is actually something that I have a hard time doing, or at least like a tonally happy song. And maybe “Birdseed” is the closest I’ve come to that even though… Even that I don’t even know if it’s like, I don’t think you’d call it a happy song, but it has like maybe a little more like Uppitiness. Yeah, I think there’s just like always a little sorrow in the songs but I don’t think in a way that it’s like, I always try to leave hope in there too, you know?
I was listening to the life of the record of the making of ‘I See a Darkness,’ and Will Oldham was kind of talking about that, where he’s like, nobody needs a song that is just completely hopeless, you know? He’s like, which like, they exist and they are important in their own way, but also like, kind of like how I feel about some horror movies and, or just like insane things that we watch where I’m like, what is the purpose of this existence? And does it have any, does it add anything to my life or like our experience?
Out of curiosity, what got you into songwriting? Was that something you were always drawn to?
Merce Lemon: I was definitely always drawn to it. I grew up in a very musical house, both my parents play music. My dad was in a band for a long time, is still in, is in a different band now, and was in my band for a while. So like very musical household, always music playing, huge record collection. Oftentimes, like bands staying at our house in my earlier childhood. So it was just very much a part of my life and I was always kind of like writing and singing songs. So I was always very drawn to like melody and lyrics and the music kind of came after is like, I think, though, when I started writing songs when I was 19, or when I was like 17 when I moved to Seattle, I had no idea how to play a guitar. I don’t think I even know knew a single chord. And I really just like YouTubed like G, A, and C to put some of those feelings and things I’ve been writing to music, but it was really just an addition to be able to turn into a song.
I think the lyrics at that point came first. It was lyrics, melody, and then here’s some chords to hold it, which I think is what I’m often drawn to in other people’s songs. That’s changed a little bit as I’ve learned to play guitar more and listen for other things, but I didn’t used to even be able to understand how to even listen for bass or any of that. I was just so keyed into melody and lyrics… And now I think that’s changing, and maybe that’s one thing with how this record is different, is I’m a little more well versed in seeing all those parts and having more of a vision for them, but still coming from a place of melody and lyricism before anything else.
I went back and revisited to Ideal for a Light Flow, and I was so happily stunned when I remembered the difference between a song like “Love Me or Leave Me” and “Johnny When He's Sweet,” because you have something really, really loud and really, really soft all in the same body of work. How does that body of songs compare to the one that you've made most recently with this new album?
Merce Lemon: That one definitely feels like I was finding myself still, just classic of first records. But I think that I’ve always had this consciousness of like, I never… I don’t want any of my songs like sound the same. Like, I don’t want a record to just like sound like one thing. And I think there’s a place for that and records that do it really well. But I’m like often so fearful when I write a new song. I’m like, does it sound too much like this other one?
So I’m always pushing, just trying… That all the songs have their own identities but still work well together and maybe Ideal for a Light Flow is a little more all over the place because it was really such a random accumulation. I still think some of the same feelings and tones and stuff come up in both albums. I still feel like I knew myself in a way that I do now. Maybe I’ve gotten a little better at expressing it, or is just like more raw and maybe I’m hiding it under poeticism a little more now or something, you know?
Tell me about the title, Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild. I know it's the name of the last song on the record, but why title the entire record?
Merce Lemon: Everyone keeps asking me that and I was like, you know, I should have come up with a good answer for this… First, I actually have such a hard time naming things. It’s usually the last thing I do and usually takes a really long time. And when I wrote that song, I was like, this feels so obviously like the title of the album. It kind of just fell into my lap. And it’s just such an evocative image and can take on so many meanings that I just thought it was playful and powerful at the same time that it can kind of encompass all the songs, depending on how you kind of interpreted that sentence.
I also like that it's just a cool, fun phrase as well.
Merce Lemon: There’s also a very straightforward answer, and that is that it comes from a story that a friend told me about staying with Michael Hurley, where I don’t know if he verbatim said that, but the way I remember my friend telling me the story is that at one point Michael Hurley went to the window and stared down the hill and was like, “Watch me drive them dogs wild,” and then he howled and a bunch of dogs at the bottom of the hill howled back.
And you know how stories change as more people tell them… I should probably ask my friend if I heard that correctly, but that’s where that comes from, and that’s how I wrote that song, and then how that title became the album. So that story was very influential to this album.
So that's how you end the record. You begin the record in such a moving way. “There are seeds between all of my teeth. I've been eating like a bird, so maybe I'll grow wings,
Merce Lemon: I think that it just felt like the perfect entrance, easing you in, in kind of a more lighthearted way. Kind of like bookending with, and then “Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild” has a lot more serious tone. Yeah, just a lightheartedness and like dreaminess, I guess, of imagining you’re something else. And yeah, that was a deep pandemic song looking out of my parents’ house at our cherry tree and watching it blossom and fruit and watching all the birds eat the fruit. So, which has been like a huge part, that tree has been like a huge part of my childhood and I’ve always wanted to pay homage to that tree, that cherry tree. And I think I tried to write songs about it before and it kind of found its place in that song.
I did want to talk about “Backyard Lover,” the album's lead single. I know it's a song about deep loss. Can you share more about the inspiration to release that song first, and how it sets the stage for what fans and listeners are now getting to hear more of?
Merce Lemon: It felt like the strongest song on the album and not to rate them in strength, but maybe ‘encompassed all the songs the best’ is a better way to say it. It has a little bit of everything in it. And I think it was a good way to kind of be like, this is a new sound that we’re exploring – ’cause it has the softness, and it also has the explosiveness that I’ve started playing around more, with my new band. So I think it just brings all those little parts to the table to give you a peek into what the album is going to explore.
We’ve talked about people, we’ve talked about objects like the cherry tree in your backyard, but we haven't talked about location or place yet. I've heard you talk about Pittsburgh before and its influence on you; what's the relationship with this album and your home city?
Merce Lemon: I guess the obvious one is that I wrote almost all of it in Pittsburgh! So it’s heavily inspired by my surroundings, whether I intentionally meant to or not. And also just having moved back here and having a new perspective on the city that I grew up in, that I took for granted as a child, and exploring it with kind of new eyes. Going to the same places or finding new places, ‘cause you come back and you’re like, ‘I know this place,’ and you can get stuck in that, but I think that I was lucky enough to meet people who helped me see it in a new way, and that was very inspiring.
For those who don't know Pittsburgh, or perhaps unfairly disregard it, what would you tell them to help change their minds? What do you love about your city?
Merce Lemon: I have a hard time talking about it ’cause I know it so well that I’m like, how do I even put it into words? But I do find it very charming. Since it was a steel town, people think it’s pretty dirty and rundown, but there’s actually a ton of nature, we have beautiful parks, tons of trees, and also the hills are just really romantic, like houses nestled in hillsides, and who doesn’t love that? Also the fact that we have these three rivers that connect and meet at our downtown. It’s just a very charming city and I think a very welcoming one, at least in my experience. And I’ve had a lot of friends on tour come and stay with me that have never been here, and were very surprised that this is what Pittsburgh was, ’cause I think it’s often clumped in with Philly and it’s just a totally different beast than Philly.
Do you hear the city's influence at all on your record? Are there any songs where it particularly resonates?
Merce Lemon: Let me look at the track list so I can remember what song is there. I guess definitely “Crow.” That one was when I was living in Bloomfield. And every year there’s like this huge crow migration. And I had an apartment where you could like sit on the roof and the crows were always often like flying over the Bloomfield neighborhood like right to this water tower on top of the hill in the distance. And that imagery was just like so striking that I think I wrote some notes down on my phone and had been kind of like toying with writing a song about that for a long time and it finally became what it is but that one is like very heavily inspired by just like, yeah, this crow migration that I’ve experienced many times while living in Pittsburgh.
“Blueberry Heaven” is a real place, it’s not in Pittsburgh but it’s nearby, within an hour or a few. So like a lot of the places like the backyard in “Backyard Lover” was a house I lived in that my friend who owned it is a farmer and they had like a wash house in the back for all the vegetables. So I, like, outside my window to my bedroom, I look down on that. Every Friday they wash vegetables and then we would make a huge dinner with all the rejects. So I feel like so many pieces and little moments in these songs are Pittsburgh.
Are there any songs that really, really resonate with you, that you hope people will listen to when the full album comes out?
Merce Lemon: “Rain” is a really special one to me. And that one, that’s the only song where I actually didn’t write the words to the song. It was a poem my friend wrote about processing flax into linen. That song obviously wouldn’t have existed without his words, but also starting a song from words always changes how it’s made… You’re following the words instead of having a structure and fitting words into it. And I think that it flows in a really beautiful way.
There’s very little structure to it, and that’s probably ’cause it started as a poem. So that one’s really special to me. And “Foolish and Fast” I think is just really fun. That’s one of my favorite songs to play live. And that one started as just a song, I was really into running and I was like, I’m gonna write a song about running. And it didn’t turn into that at all, but that was its origins. It’s kind of fun to be like, I’m gonna write a song about this, and then it completely takes you on its own journey.
That song is just really fun. And I could talk about all of them, but I would also say “Blueberry Heaven” is probably the one I play the least right now live, but I think that the place of “Blueberry Heaven” has been very impactful to my life. Maybe that one feels like the closest to my old songwriting, and maybe that’s why I have a hard time with it. But at the same time, it kind of has to be there.
Do you have any favorite lyrics in this album that really resonate with you?
Merce Lemon: I think that one of my favorite lyrics, which I think the way that I kind of figured this out was, I played SXSW two years ago. I was just there solo, and I played this little event called Lyrics as Poetry. And Carolina, who’s Hemlock, and Little Mazarn are the ones that introduced me to it. And Little Mazarn does letterpress printing, and so she was choosing a few, like a line from people’s songs that were performing and doing letterpress of them. And I read through all of my lyrics and I chose the part in “Crow” where it says, “I’d make a city of this ghost town…” Oh, “Even let the crows come rest their necks and nest their young.” So the rest their necks and nest their young I think is a line I’m really proud of. And I don’t do a lot of repetition in my songs, but that is one song where I repeat that six or seven times in a row.
I really like that. I like how you can take the same line and just lean into it. The words lose their old meaning and gain new meaning over the course of that repetition. What do you hope listeners ultimately take away from Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild, and likewise, what have you taken away from creating it and now putting it out?
Merce Lemon: The way that I relate to music is very emotional, and so I hope it evokes that in other people, and maybe helps you feel things that you needed to feel or see things a different way or notice things when you’re walking around, just helping you be more present, which is something I was trying to do through my songwriting.
I still feel very emotional when playing some of these songs. Recently I played a show and I was having a really hard life moment, and I was soundchecking and could barely sing some of the songs without crying, so they’re still very raw with me, too, and I hope that people can feel that and interpret them the way they need to in their own lives.
In the spirit of paying it forward, who would you recommend to our readers that you're listening to these days?
Merce Lemon: I was driving home from New York two days ago, and I actually almost exclusively listened to the new Rennie Conti album which actually is not out. I probably listened to it six times in a row, and like, you know when you listen to an album that many times and you think you have a favorite and it changes every single time?
That really hit me a few days ago, and then I think I bookended that trip with listening to Hemlock who’s also a really good friend of mine. Greg Freeman is like a huge, I love his music. I’m trying to think of like other… Fust is one of my favorite bands right now. Aaron is also an amazing songwriter and melody maker. I saw them, we play a show at South by in like the sweatiest art gallery where like nobody had, nothing was set up and we set it all up ourselves and kind of just like played for each other and some friends, and I was like so… I think I was gonna go drive my guitarist, Reed, to go see their friends, and then they started playing and we both just like locked in and we were like, we’re not leaving. I feel like I could go on and on. I mean, Colin Miller has been a huge influence to making this record come to life and listening to his songs and bouncing ideas off of him has been really important to my process.
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:: stream/purchase Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild here ::
:: connect with Merce Lemon here ::
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“Foolish and Fast” – Merce Lemon
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