Lindsay Ell is going through a creative metamorphosis. You can see it in her purple-dyed hair and hear it on her new EP, love myself. “Purple is the color of creativity,” she tells American Songwriter. “If I want to pull all of this energy that I’m trying to put into my music, then why not purple? Why not lean into the creative expression of what you’re feeling?”
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Love myself offers a personal look into the healing journey of the Canada-born singer, who admits she’s often felt like a “black sheep,” making a habit out of going against the grain. The Calgary, Alberta, native started coming to Nashville in 2009 to make her way in the music industry. Over time, her strong work ethic earned her a network of songwriters she would connect with on her trips to Nashville, often booking three writing sessions during the day and then performing at writers’ rounds at night. Meanwhile, in Calgary, she’d book live gigs for herself, all while juggling school and waiting tables to pay for her Nashville trips.
“When I came to Nashville 15 years ago, my eyes were so open wide, and I was like, ‘The world is my oyster, and I am going to do this,’” she states of her determination. In 2011, she got her first publishing deal and was offered a record deal at Broken Bow Records in 2013, to whom she had been signed for a decade. While she’s grateful for the experience of being on a label and the team who supported her along the way, she acknowledges the frustration that comes with having to fit into a commercial box.
“My brain got so fixated on what I needed to write to get on country radio compared to what I needed to write for myself,” she explains. “When you are creating music so that it will be commercially successful, compared to creating music that is really moving to me and hopefully moving to somebody else who will hear it, in my opinion, you’ve got it backwards.”
Ell released her major label debut album, The Project, in 2017, earning her first Top 20 single on the Billboard Country Airplay chart with “Criminal.” Her second full-length album on the label, Heart Theory, was released in 2020. The singer admits that constantly being told, “You’re not country enough,” by people at country radio became creatively draining. “After hearing that for so many years, I was like, ‘Maybe I just don’t fit here,’” she shares of her desire to explore other genres. “There was a part of me trying to get my songs played on the radio that I didn’t want to fight that battle anymore.”
In 2023, she left the label and regained full creative control of her career. Going into the studio with recent musical influences like Maggie Rogers and The 1975 playing in her head, Ell let go of the need to fit into a genre and allowed herself to create in a way that felt most freeing.
“I started writing music that felt real and sonically like it evolved,” she expresses of the EP that leans into indie-pop. “I could go into a studio and literally make any sound I wanted, compared to before I had given myself a list of rules. The quality of the song and the ability of a song to connect to a human being listening to it on the other side of the world is what matters. I really believe that music is supposed to feel like this healing process when you write it and listen to it.”
With that perspective in mind, Ell is forging a new creative path with love myself, a handful of songs that tell her story of growing both personally and professionally. In 2023, Ell was diagnosed with anorexia, specifically the subtype binge-purge wherein she would starve herself for two weeks and then eat “uncontrollably” for a few days, a cycle she’s been caught in for 20 years.
On Heart Theory, Ell opened up about a sexual assault she experienced at the age of 13 and recalls developing the eating disorder shortly after. “It’s not something I really ever saw coming, which is probably part of the problem,” she says of the diagnosis. “When you’re 13 years old, you don’t really have the tools to deal with those things. I knew that my relationship with food was not healthy, but I never thought that I would get diagnosed with anorexia. I think that when I was a little girl, my relationship with food was the control I felt with it. It was the one thing when I felt like my life was completely out of control, and I did not know how to feel all of these emotions; I could numb myself. It helped me feel like I had control over something because I could control the way my body looked, I could control what I ate, what I didn’t. It gave me a grip on something. However, that grip was so temporary.”
[RELATED: Lindsay Ell Lets Truth Lead the Way on Career-Altering Album ‘heart theory’]
The issue came to a head in January 2023 when Ell was sitting on her kitchen floor “eating everything in sight” after starving herself for weeks. It was at that moment she realized she needed help. “I was like, ‘This has to stop. I can’t do this alone anymore,’” she recalls of the defining moment.
“You rob yourself of food for so long, your body needs nutritional rehabilitation, and so you’re just grasping for straws. But I couldn’t stop, and then after that, I would feel so bad, and I would go work out for four hours, and then I would start the cycle again. It was just so painful.” Ell, who is currently on tour with Shania Twain as her lead guitarist, transformed her pain into healing through music. She started seeing different doctors and found an eating disorder therapist to help aid in her healing journey. She channeled these experiences into the EP’s title track, which embodies the idea of loving oneself unconditionally through such lyrics as Wanna snap my fingers / Look in the mirror / And finally see her / But it’s a battle.
“It really centers around loving yourself and accepting yourself, looking in the mirror, and being able to be like, ‘I love that person staring back at me.’ I do finally see her, and I do accept her for everything that she is, knowing that life is going to be this roller coaster, the good with the bad, the beauty with the flaws,” she explains the song’s meaning.
“love myself” also captures the essence of the Japanese technique of Kintsugi, wherein pieces of broken pottery are pieced back together with gold or silver paint. “The philosophy behind that art form is to really see your flaws as beauty. I think that has been what I’ve really been trying to see her as. I am learning every day to love her just as she is,” Ell continues of her refreshed mentality.
The singer builds upon this theme with “story i tell myself,” a song that explores how many of the toxic narratives she used to tell herself were untrue, stemming from her wounded inner child who felt like she was “not enough.”
“The words we tell ourselves in our minds are, I think, the most potent dialogue that we have and has such an impact on the way we show up in the world,” she conveys. “I think that when we can rewrite those stories and really try to take a tab of what we’re constantly saying in the back of our brain, it can completely affect your life.”
“pain tolerance” is another example of how the stories we tell ourselves can shape our perception. Ell recalls walking into the writing session with Donovan Woods and Andrew Austin, announcing that she wanted to write a song called “pain tolerance.” When they asked her why, she shared how she often wore metaphorical battle scars like a badge of honor after a breakup or a hardship she faced in life. Now that she’s gone through part of the healing process, she sees that mentality in a new light.
RELATED: Lindsay Ell Advocates for Sexual Assault Victims]
“Although I do think the things that we go through in life make us strong, I don’t think that the perception I had is necessarily helpful. I think it attracts more chaos compared to being like, ‘I’m going to learn from my mistakes, and I don’t really want that energy,’” she analyzes. “When people would say, ‘You’re so strong,’ I would take it as a compliment. I don’t think that should be a compliment that you should be proud of. It’s like, ‘Maybe I got to rearrange some things in my brain.’”
As she continues the healing process, Ell notes that songwriting serves as one of the most effective forms of therapy for her, as she’s found solace and creative liberation through the making of love myself.
“The number one thing I think anybody can do is listen to that gut instinct. It’s really important to listen to yourself because that is the thing that makes you uniquely you,” she proclaims. “The past couple of years have been ugly and so beautiful in the same light because now [I’m] healing all of these patterns. Life is more alive.”
Photo by Hannah Gray Hall
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