Kevin Bronson on September 29th, 2022

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We are here once again to serve as a vessel for Alex Lilly, whose music is to the current plethora of pop what a Picasso is to a selfie.

She introduced her new album “Repetition Is a Sin” (out Oct. 21) in August with the single “Frank,” an oh-so-clever contemplation in which she decides heaven is not for her, since all of her friends will be, er, downstairs.

This week, Lilly released the single “Melinda,” a song she composed for hire. She explains that during the pandemic, with work scarce, she wrote jingles for people. (Seems a handy way to ply one’s trade; over the years the brilliant songwriter Eef Barzelay has compiled volumes of such songs.) “Melinda,” commissioned by the subject’s husband, immortalizes Melinda Sullivan, “an incredible tap dancer living in Los Angeles with whom I’d performed a handful of times at a little jazz club called the Gardenia,” Lilly says.

||| Stream: “Melinda”

Earlier this month, Lilly released her new album’s first track, “Pure Drivel,” which was inspired by a (rather casual, as she tells it) book club that she joined over the pandemic and a song that she bills as “a sexy song about books.” If you’re prone to crushing on librarians, the opening lyric — “I know you canceled all your plans / so come over / Let’s read some books that got banned” — might crack your spine.

The song, which was accompanied by a stylishly choreographed video filmed in and around a Berlin library, arrived in time for the American Library Association’s Banned Books Week. Lilly has some things to say about banning books, too, so check out the video and find the songwriter’s statement on the subject below …

||| Watch: The video for “Pure Drivel”

Alex Lilly on book banning:

“There’s been an uptick in book banning lately. And yes, the usual suspects are at it again, though there are some new players, too.

“You’d think living in a time where hard-core pornography exists at the click of a button, there’d be bigger fish to fry. But it’s not the smut that really scares these book-banners — it’s indoctrination. And I think despite the reasons given (reasons ranging from profanity to violence to sexual orientation), I think at its core, it’s always been a fear of indoctrination. You’ll become a communist if you read ‘Animal Farm,’ a junkie if you read ‘Naked Lunch’ and a slut if you read ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover.’

“But then it’s all too absurdly reasonable — many of the people at the center of this book-banning business are people who themselves were indoctrinated by a book. These good Christians know firsthand just how powerful stories can be. But unlike their particular book, a regular old book doesn’t threaten or make promises. There are no transactions here. A novel is a window onto another world, which you’re free to interpret. And if you don’t like what you read, you can close it at any time without fear of consequence.

“The current consternation in book-banning circles hovers around a book’s presumed power to render people gay or transgender. We see this with the pulling of ‘Gender Queer’ and other similar titles. And from a different corner of society we see calls to ban ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’ due to racist characters issuing forth racist slurs — the idea being that depictions of racism might desensitize certain minds, making them more prone to racist ideologies and behaviors.

“In the past, banning for this reason was even extended to black authors (James Baldwin and Toni Morrison included). These anti-lit crusaders certainly have an appreciation for irony! The common thread among these disparate groups of book-banners, in my humble opinion, seems to be a total underestimation of the human mind and spirit. If people are this confused and impressionable, then books are the least and last of their troubles.

“The book-banning bunch is right that books are powerful. But they’re wrong about the nature of this power. Reading a book can certainly transform your perspective but transformation is not dangerous. They’ve made synonymous two words, transformation and indoctrination, when they couldn’t be more different. Transformation is based on discovery. Indoctrination is based on surrender. Here’s that irony again — those indoctrinated themselves are paranoid about indoctrination. And they’re going after the most oppressive and abusive systems of control on Earth — libraries!

“‘Free the nipple’ was shouted around for a while. Can we bring back ‘Free the mind!?’ It’s not to say there aren’t some unwanted consequences to freedom. There’s no perfect solution. But when you look through the annals of history, you see violence and trouble mostly in pens, not open pastures. The darkest days of history coincide always with intellectual freedoms being repressed. So a mind allowed to wander, to discover, to wonder. Is that really the scariest thing? Oh but wait, what about all those mobs of murderous philosophers!?”

||| Live: Alex Lilly celebrates the release of “Repetition Is a Sin” with a show Oct. 21 at Gold-Diggers. Also performing: The Living Sisters (Inara George, Eleni Mandell, Lilly and Becky Stark of Lavender Diamond). Tickets.

||| Previously: “Frank,” “Goodbye Reckless Things,” “Infantile,” Alex Lilly’s artist playlist and “2% Milk”, “Distracting Me,” “I Can’t Tell You,” “Photogenic Life,” “Paranoid Times” (feat. Tre Hardson of the Pharcyde), Zero DeZire, live at the Masonic Lodge, “Bad Dreams” (in Touché), “Everything He Wants” (in Touché), “Tropical Fish” (as Obi Best), Obi Best interview, as Colorforms