The Lovelines are a brother-sister band that make great music across six time zones. “Tessa D” is the band’s singer and resides in Berlin. Her half-brother Todd Goings lives in Orlando, Florida and is the duo’s songwriter.
Earlier this year, their debut single “Strange Kind Of Love” reached the #1 spot on SubmitHub’s pop charts. That’s no small feat for a song that only has four words: strange kind of love.
Their new single “Steadily” is refreshingly retro, with a slow-burn vocal reminiscent of Julie London and Astrud Gilberto in the late Fifties/early Sixties.
Tell me you love me, babe
What a shame, I believe it
My theory is that The Lovelines are wowing young listeners by serving up something they’ve never heard: jazzy arrangements and smoldering vocals that don’t rely on digital beeps, burps and AutoTune.
With The Lovelines, “everything old is new again.” Their song “Steadily” is like a poolside martini…and you’ll enjoy every drop.
In your song “Steadily,” what is happening steadily? Is the singer steadily succumbing to a lover’s lies, like “you gonna stay, you love me” etc.
Tessa: The idea behind the song is that one person in a relationship feels like the other is slowly withdrawing from them – there could be a number of reasons for this, ranging from infidelity to simply losing interest. This slow, steady withdrawal is so subtle that it’s difficult to address, making the person still committed to the relationship feel increasingly helpless and desperate. The cover art we selected is intended to convey the song’s meaning; a wedding ring is perhaps the most widely recognized symbol of commitment, so displaying it on the cover of this song, which addresses the topic of commitment, seemed fitting.
Todd: Yeah, the title is a reference to the old-fashioned phrase “going steady.”
Which sultry singers from the Fifties and early Sixties do you like best? Astrud Gilberto, Julie London? Or maybe others?
Tessa: I would say Julie London is my favorite. Her soulful tone allows you to really pick up on the emotions she is trying to convey in her songs. In general, I enjoy vocalists that are able to achieve this feat – some more modern singers that exemplify this would be Lennon Stella or Norah Jones.
Your song “Strange Kind Of Love” has been very well-received, yet there are only four words in the entire song: strange kind of love. Was that by design?
Todd: There’s was something spellbinding about the sound of it. When I was recording the original demo of “Strange Kind Of Love,” if I added a 5th word, it broke the spell. So, I didn’t add a 5th word.
Your songs are lyrically more spare than some of the great standards of yore. For example, “That Old Black Magic” has a lot of words and nothing repeats musically for the first 48 bars or so. What jazzy standards have most influenced your sound?
Todd: João Gilberto’s Bim Bom is a good reference point for minimalism and repetition in jazz. The chorus is him singing “bim bom.” It’s like singing “Sha-Na-Na” or “La-Di-Da.” Singing how something feels, not what it is. Musical expressionism. There’s an art to saying something while saying nothing (haha). This is all of my song / And there’s nothing more. Bim Bom.
João Gilberto, Stan Getz, and Antonio Carlos Jobim are like the gold standard for…standards (haha). But, yeah, that’s a catalogue you hear renditions of all over the world… on the radio, in an elevator, from a busker on the corner.
Do you find that young listeners are drawn to standards (and faux standards) because they sound fresh and real compared to the AutoTune stuff they’ve grown up listening to?
Tessa: I think we can see a growing demand for less AutoTune in the popularity of singers like Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo. You can really hear the raw emotion in their voices, something which AutoTune sometimes strips away. This isn’t to say that AutoTune can’t be great (when used sparingly), but rather that because we have become so accustomed to hearing it, when we don’t, it piques our interest. Not sure how accurate that is, but that’s my two cents.
Todd: I agree, there can be an art to it. I like no auto-tune… and I like auto-tuned, vocoded Daft Punk vocals… It’s context. For our sound, auto-tune wouldn’t sound good.
