On "Lucille," Austin-based singer-songwriter Michael Paul Lawson explores those quiet moments in the weeks, months or even years after a breakup when you let yourself wonder what might've been if things had worked out. As the rollicking tune and its music video indicates, it's a dangerous game, but one we're all susceptible to when the self-doubt rolls in.
"Yeah, I think about her—Lucille. Of course, Lucille isn't her name, and there are about a dozen variations of her," Lawson says of the song. "But yeah, I think about her—mainly in the quiet moments when dissatisfaction starts to fill the empty spaces. Do I think things would be better with Lucille? Even I know better than to answer that question."
"Lucille," featuring guitar work by Laur Joamets (Sturgill Simpson, Drivin N Cryin), is the latest single from Lawson's forthcoming album Love Songs For Loners (out October 7).
The music video, which Wide Open Country is premiering today, finds Lawson taking a bittersweet trip down memory lane, watching VHS tapes of a lost love.
"Brian Ariotti directed the video. We've been best friends since college, and he's the most talented filmmaker I know," Lawson tells Wide Open Country. "Most of his work is in documentaries. He's won an Emmy, but he had never shot a music video. Brian was there at some of my lowest points—times in my life when I couldn't let go of things that hadn't turned out the way I had wanted them to. He was the only person I trusted for this project. We both felt strongly about not wanting to lean heavily on country tropes. Instead of shooting in Texas, we shot the video in a 400-ish square foot studio apartment in Sunnyside, Queens that Brian lived in for years but now uses as an office. I've crashed in that tiny apartment so many times over the past decade. It felt fitting to have some tangible piece of my past represented in the video."
Watch the video for "Lucille" below.
When making Love Songs For Loners, the follow-up to Lawson's 2019 folk album Some Fights You'll Never Win, the singer says he wanted to capture a wide range of the country music hat's shaped him.
"When I started writing the songs for this record, I knew I wanted to make something reflecting the full-color palette of country music, from traditional to western swing to alt-country," Lawson said in a press statement. "I wanted Love Songs For Loners to feel like the three places I've called home: New York, Virginia and Texas."
