Allison Russell's Road To Self-Love

艾莉森·拉塞尔的自爱之路

Fresh Air

艺术

2023-12-27

47 分钟
PDF

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Canadian musician Allison Russell talks and sings about the abuse she endured from her racist adoptive father — and about how she learned she was worthy of being loved. Her 2023 album is The Returner. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy

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  • On the TEd Radio hour, linguist Ann Curzan says she gets a lot of.

  • Complaints about people using the pronoun they.

  • To refer to one person.

  • I sometimes get into arguments with people where they will say to me, but it can't be singular.

  • And I will say, but it is the history behind words causing a lot of debate.

  • That's on the Ted radio hour from NPR.

  • This is FRESH AIR.

  • I'm Terry Gross.

  • This week, we're featuring some of our favorite interviews of the year.

  • Today we hear from musician Alison Russell, who sings original songs in a powerful voice that rings out.

  • Some of her songs are about a subject that many people feel they have to keep secret.

  • She was physically and sexually abused by her adoptive father through her childhood until she left home at age 15.

  • She has a song about one night when she was in high school and had to escape him.

  • She ran to the home of her girlfriend, her first love, and tapped on her window, asking to be let in.

  • As we learn in other songs, some night she escaped him by sleeping in a park or a cemetery or sheltering in a cathedral.

  • She also has songs about learning she's capable of being loved and re entering her body after having had to mentally detach from it to survive.

  • Her mother is white, her biological father is black, and her adoptive father is is a white racist.

  • She sings about that, too.

  • After performing in bands for many years, she now records under her own name.

  • Her first solo album, Outside Child, released in 2020, ₩1, a Juno Award, the canadian equivalent of a Grammy for contemporary roots album of the year.