Songstress Lucie Thorne is known for the poetry of her lyrics and the sensitive touch she brings to her subjects as she weaves a story and melody around them.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
In her new album she provides a voice for young woman Kitty Walsh who fell in love with the charismatic bushranger Frank Gardiner in a rural NSW town, which is followed by a tale of Shakespearean-like tragedy.
For this album, titled Kitty & Frank, she has added a twist to her songs, embracing dream-soaked synths that dip into the world of pop in what she described as a "venture into new territory".
Speaking to Australian Community Media on August 14 from her home base of Melbourne where she was in a "hectic, pre-release la la land", she said the idea for the album was sparked the morning after a gig when sitting around having coffee with her friend, historian Craig Lawler.
He told her the "wild, complicated and detailed story" about the lovers which totally captivated her and together they researched the life of Kitty.
"As is so often the case, women are written out of that period of history, and so many others as well," Thorne said.
"Women are often invisible in a lot of our history.
"I got imagining what would life have been like for a woman of that time and I wanted to bring a female perspective to this historical time.
"She was a young, married woman, her sisters married young too, living on the edge of colonial occupied NSW and after the discovery of gold the population of Europeans in the town went from about 150 to 20,000, so there was this incredibly rapid cultural shift where she had to get used to this increase of people.
"Then in comes this charming and charismatic bushranger figure, who falls wildly in love with Kitty."
It has been four years since she released her last album Everything Sings Tonight which she toured solidly for a couple of years before dropping into a lull in her songwriting - the first song for Kitty & Frank was written about a year after Everything Sings Tonight came out.
"It was strange, it filled up a whole corner in the back of my mind, this story of Kitty and Frank, and I had a real sense I was going to write something on them," the 42-year-old said.
"But it took a while to crack that, it was a slow burn. But once I cracked it, it came out pretty quickly."
While the record's songs such as Nothing Comes Close and Twilight Star may be sonically similar to her previous work, she said others such as Golden Plains and Catherine Christie were "pretty sideways" from anything she had done before.
"They came out because I borrowed a friend's MIDI keyboard and went to a shack for a week and thought 'let's see what comes out'," Thorne said.
"I didn't think 'I'm going to write pop songs'.
"I had this lightning bolt moment where I realised this wild, Shakespearean, tragic love story would live in any sonic world.
"I wrote most of the songs without a guitar, and it's the first time I've done that."
While she knows many songwriters have created music about historical characters, she was not aware of anyone who had done so in the pop genre.
"If you do tell someone you've written a song set in the 1800s there's a strong assumption it will be a certain folk record filled with banjos!" she said.
"The subject matter may be historical, but in some ways it is timeless; it has hardship, romance, adventure, tragedy.
"It's set between 1860 and 1882, but so much of that story could happen at any time."
Thorne was looking forward to returning to Candelo, her old home town, saying "clearly it's a place that's dear to my heart".
She will perform Kitty & Frank from front to back with a full band, will tell a few stories of the lovers, and will be supported by local harpist and vocalist Anactoria.
The show is at Candelo Town Hall, Candelo on Sunday, September 15 from 3pm.
Tickets are $25/$20, to buy click here.
Albert McKnight
Journalist at Bega District News.
Journalist at Bega District News.
