Billboard Magazine has premiered the title track from Anna Tivel’s upcoming LP, The Question.
“It feels like this similar thread between the songs is sort of grappling with trying to figure out the meaning of a bigger thing and struggling with that — just the humanness of spending a whole lifetime struggling to figure it out when maybe it’s figuring out the struggle is the thing that actually gives it meaning,” Tivel tells Billboard. And much of what she writes about on the 10-track set was inspired by being on the road, “driving around and listening to the news for hours and taking in people’s stories and how everything that’s going on is affecting people in different parts of the country.”
The Question’s title track, meanwhile, came from a specific encounter during Tivel’s travels. “It’s about being in New York and looking up into a window and seeing a man putting on makeup and a wig,” Tivel recalls. “There’s a lot of people I know and friends of friends who are transgender, transitioning or just struggling, and having the president sort of waffling backwards on any progress that’s been made with that. I started writing this (song) as a poem that night and put it to chords later back at home.”
The record will be available on April 19 in LP, CD and digital formats. In in addition to standard Black Vinyl, the LP will be available as a Limited-Edition Marble Yellow version, limited to 150 copies. You can pre-order the record here.