Singer Lilly Hiatt’s Scarred Optimism

“Trinity Lane,” Hiatt’s third album, reveals a plainspoken talent.

Lilly Hiatt

Trinity Lane

New West

New West

Cooking up a volatile brew of anger, need, and scarred optimism, Lilly Hiatt tells vivid stories of a life in flux on her bracing third album. While the sound of Trinity Lane encompasses everything from brooding garage rockers to jangly country-tinged laments to sentimental ballads, Hiatt’s commanding presence and eloquent songs tie everything together. Candid and plainspoken, she crafts stark vignettes, exclaiming, “I get bored so I wanna get drunk/I know how that goes/So I ain’t gonna touch it,” on the title track, revisiting a lost romance on “The Night David Bowie Died” and cautiously offering her secrets to a lover on “So Much You Don’t Know.” Given her DNA—she’s the daughter of the great singer-songwriter John Hiatt, and sometimes echoes his vocal inflections—Hiatt’s talent is no surprise, but the credit for a work this powerful should go entirely to her.

WE'LL BE BLUNT:

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate