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I am a Wolf

from Shapeshifter by Violet Bell

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about

She’s a vibe. This recording is one complete vocal take. In the first half Lizzy is singing the fisherman’s perspective and in the second half she's singing the selkie’s answer. We love how Tati’s fiddle plays the fierce wildness of the selkie, and getting to switch between characters, feeling their different energy, singing the longing and the fury. Though they come to the situation from different perspectives, the fisherman and the selkie sing the same chorus. While the fisherman is frustrated by the selkie’s disinterest and the shattering of his fantasy of what life with the captured selkie would be like, the selkie is furious to be land-bound in the fisherman’s tiny world. He’s asking a tidal force to wear a petticoat.

In our culture, girls learn young how to be desirable. Look like the woman on TV. Curl your eyelashes, wear the right jeans, arch your back, make the right noises when he touches you.

The selkie knows she comes from the sea - an ancient, wild, untameable power. She doesn’t give a fuck about being desirable. She is unto herself.

lyrics

what do I do with a woman?
my hands are rough, I don’t know how to change
how do I hold the ocean?
how do I sleep at night with my back against a wave?

I went to town
I saw the Madam
she said my shoulders are broad,
my back’s so strong,

she said my eyes are grey like the sea
and you oughta see
you can swim in me
you can swim in me

what do I do with a woman?
my hands are rough, I don’t know how to hold her
what do I say? I got nothing.
I don’t speak her tongue, I don’t speak her tongue
all day long
all day long
I can feel her eyes on me
I can hear her mind on me
I wish she would stop thinking about
how to get free.

I am a wolf, not a woman
a sea-wolf, a she-wolf, a free wolf, til you came around
sneaking, stealing, kidnapping
while you sleep I oughta rip your throat out

I’ll take you down
deep in my waters
where there is no king
where my mother sings

I’ll take you down
where the sun never touches
but the pale moon glows blue
all day long
all day long
I can feel your eyes on me
I can hear your mind on me
I’ll never stop thinking about
how to get free.

credits

from Shapeshifter, track released October 7, 2022
Lizzy Ross - lead vocals
Omar Ruiz-Lopez - acoustic guitar, vocal harmonies
Tatiana Hargreaves - 5-string fiddle
Joseph Terrell - acoustic guitar, electric guitar, vocal harmonies
Libby Rodenbough - vocal harmonies
SOUND ENGINEER: Jason Richmond
MIXING ENGINEER: Jason Richmond
MASTERING ENGINEER: Jason Richmond
PRODUCER: Jason Richmond, Lizzy Ross, Omar Ruiz-Lopez

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Violet Bell Chapel Hill, North Carolina

✨harmony + folklore + queer + de-homogenizing the americana roots music narrative ✨ Our new album Shapeshifter is out 10/7/22. It tells the ancient story of the selkie, a seal who can take off her skin to become human, as medicine for social norms that would keep us small. ... more

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