Features : Claire Lefton expresses joys, tribulations of common folk in EP ‘Renaissance Woman’

CINCINNATI, Ohio — With lyrics born of real experiences and a powerful voice inspired by the freedom and grace of 1990s female rock stars, Cincinnati-based singer-songwriter Claire Lefton is sending her second EP, “Renaissance Woman” out to the world on Oct. 7.

This five-track EP reflects the challenged feelings of an entire generation of young people who have endured unprecedented isolation for parts of the past two years of COVID-19 and the thoughts of someone who spent her isolation in sometimes tortured self-reflection and deep thought.

Lefton said she’s coping with her isolation by singing songs that express the emotions that many are feeling as we come out of this period of isolation into a future that has changed forever.

The five songs on the EP include the track that gave the EP its name, “Renaissance Woman,” and four others: “Cosmic Wind,” “The Library,” “In the Sun,” and “Different Tracks, Different Trains.”

“I’ve had quite a year writing all of these songs over a time where there was a lot of self-reflection because I’ve been pretty isolated because of things like COVID,” Lefton said. “So it's been a lot of how I process things and what I’m thinking about.

“A song like Renaissance Woman is how I’ve been very frustrated when you have to look at your body every day and judge it and you realize that body standards that have been imposed upon women. Women's bodies have been treated like a fashion statement. What is the ideal body now might not be the ideal body in like five to 10 years thanks to plastic surgery industry trying to profit on women’s insecurities and self-hatred.”

While some of the songs are introspective, other songs, like “The Library,” are Lefton’s frustration with attitudes of today.

“I wrote ‘The Library,’ as a sort of multi-perspective song about my frustrations with the rise in anti-intellectualism in America and the world at large,” she said. “It’s different people talking about the same event — basically this town burning down a library because they were told the people who wrote the books were heathens who didn’t know what they were actually talking about. I feel like it’s sort of where we’re at in a lot of ways. I wrote that one in a burst of frustration over several political things happening at once and I thought that was a good way to get it out of my system.”

“In the Sun,” was written after Lefton suffered a full-body sunburn during a day outside and came to the conclusion that Summer being the best of seasons was one of many lies people tell themselves.

“I have the very strong opinion that summer time is not actually the best season and we’ve been trained to like it the most as kids because that’s when summer break is,” Lefton said. “It’s sarcastic because I’m like oh, isn't it awesome when it’s like a thousand degrees and you go be out in the ocean and then you get salt in your eyes. I talk about how we tell ourselves it’s all fine when our boss screams at us at work about nothing because this is how it is and I need this job and things like that. It’s about the lies we regularly tell ourselves.”

The songs ‘Different Tracks, Different Trains,” and “Cosmic Winds” are different takes on feelings and relationships and dealing with people and their complications.

Lefton said the entire album is a story of self-reflection.

“It’s the thoughts I've been ruminating on for the last year or year and a half, especially when I’m alone and I spend a lot of time with these thoughts,” Lefton said. “It’s what comes to mind, what are the things that I think about the most and what are the things I feel compelled to express in a way? I really admired how a lot of the rocker women of the 90s were like free to express their thoughts and emotions in a way that was a little more messy than what came before and a lot afterward. This album is in that vein.”

Lefton said the colorful cover art for her EP is an original artwork created by her talented cousin, Zoe Nourie.

Watch for Claire Lefton’s “Renaissance Woman” dropping on Oct. 7 on Spotify and Apple Music and follow her on the following social media links:

Socials:
Facebook
Instagram
Tiktok