Hopeful Woman by Natalie Jane Hill

Natalie Jane Hill is a new-to-me artist, despite releasing two other full length albums: her 2020 debut, Azalea, and its followup, 2021’s Solely – both on Dear Life Records.

I will be honest, Hopeful Woman did not start off as a definite featured album for me, as I passed on it for my March 6th post. It did, however, linger on my Saved Albums list and begged me for further listens, as I took a pass at the March 13th releases. One listen begged for another and another… gradually deepening its hold on me with each passing song.

I’m now fully convinced it belongs amongst the other featured releases for this year and I’m sure it will have staying power in my top 50 come the end of the year. If you like Sharon Van Etten, Angel Olsen, Hope Sandoval and the like, I think you will feel the same way.

From Bandcamp:

Natalie Jane Hill’s new record, Hopeful Woman, is composed of slender songs, life-sized, in which humans endeavor to reconcile themselves to wildernesses and cities; rearrange their rooms and open windows to be closer to the world outside and its choruses of frogs and crickets; attempt and fail to reach one another across a kitchen table; weather natural disaster. If something we might deign to call self-discovery emerges over the course of these narratives, it owes in no small part to the scale of their scenes, to the modesty of their ambitions, in which tumult and adaptation and growth are metabolized through a body’s gentle actions and reactions, its moments of quietude and observation and reflection. “Into the current of life I will fly,” Hill sings on Oranges, a song that would serve her well as a mission statement. “Changing and loving and growing and trying.”

Song Highlights

“Colors” speaks to that feeling when you realize you are in love with someone, but know that it may not be permanent because you are both independent people:

Colors in your bedroom Dancing on my tired skin Foggy mind, up late Fell asleep as the birds were waking Warm air moving through the city A quiet haven in this canopy And you there, I thought I had dreamt it A vision so clear and familiar feeling I like you very much I do Think it surprised you just how sure I knew Like waking up for the first time In a golden field of your sound I’ve been thinking about the direction of my life Where it’s been and where it’s headed I’d like to keep you close, even if only in my mind Cause I know how sometimes you gotta follow your light And I know how sometimеs I gotta follow mine And I know how sometimes wе gotta follow our light And I know how sometimes I gotta follow mine

On “I Thought Love Meant”, Hill looks past the baggage and negative from past relationships to appreciate how easy the current relationship is and can be:

I thought love meant hurting For it to be working just right And I thought love meant holding Onto the very thing That clipped those wings from flight And I thought love meant giving up The little glow that makes you whole And I thought love meant being Someone else you don’t know Now I am learning love can feel easily free You show me how simple and how light it oughta be I’m not sure I’ll ever know just how to name the thing That takes me through the ether Past the sky, out past everything

I thought love

On “It Never Left Me” Hill tries to look past old relationships and heartbreak that has left her feeling broken and a shell of her former self, realizing there’s still good there underneath it all.

Always coming and going, like the sun through a curtain Take a photo with your mind, before it’s gone in time Is there a perfect in between? Must have seen it in a dream Somewhere here or over there, it doesn’t matter to me If I don’t hold on to something grounded and strong I’ll just float away A loose paper bag - carried up by wind That’s what I told you in the big city My mystery and your honesty has never hurt me It’s only guided me, repurposing all of the good I thought had left me But it nеver left me Brеaking down all of the versions of myself that I got wrong Shaking off all of the dust that had collected on this sorry heart And I’m still learning, forever searching But it never left me It never left me