INTERVIEW: Ruth Lyon

Image: Sel Maclean

As a writer of non-fiction, I was intrigued to find out more about Ruth Lyon’s relationship with words and books. Indeed, the lead single from the Newcastle indie folk singer’s debut album, Poems & Non-Fiction, is an allegorical homage, simply called Books. “I have a pile of books by the bed,” she sings before admitting, “I admire the fonts and the colours, I will not read them.”

It is difficult not to become immersed in the clarity of the metaphor while the music itself (and throughout a wonderfully experimental album within the modern folk genre) is beautifully realised, albeit on a very complex structural level. “My relationship with books is difficult. I find reading a really tiring thing but I love books. I love to dip in and out of them but I like poetry as a more visceral experience and a more accessible way of engaging with the written word,” Ruth told me. “I write a lot of poetry [but] I do a lot of travelling, I love swimming in the sea, I love gardening, and I like birds and nature, so I’m always influenced by lots of different things. A bit like a magpie I gather all these bits together and come up with a rhythm and some kind of melody to see what kind of poetry works with it. It’s quite a chaotic process.”

I wanted to leave enough holes for people to weave in their own stories or emotions and connect with the bits that speak to them.

The album is produced by John Parish (PJ Harvey, Aldous Harding). “John is the most patient man in the world and he never says no! There are a lot of strange sounds on the album that was John letting me try things out but he is also very good at editing my chaos. He’s like my musical interpreter. I use songwriting and composing as a way of expressing myself in a way that I can’t with talking. I love talking but sometimes the talking becomes too much like a big buzzy noise, whereas with a vehicle like a song I can condense the energy down.”

Poems & Non-Fiction has been described as shimmering between abstract and naked truth, while Ruth has previously talked about the tension between truth and imagination. I’d never heard this put so eloquently and it is clearly something that feeds into the snapshot concept and underlying themes of the record. I wondered if Ruth found it easy to creatively reimagine her own life experiences for the purpose of the songs? “I originally recorded the album in 2023 but it took me a year to process and see how much of myself I wanted to put in. It is abstract but it is honest and authentic. I use abstract language because I want to leave a bit of space for interpretation from the listener. You don’t need to know me, my life or my life experiences and you don’t need to be my friend. What I hope is people get to know a bit of me. I wanted to leave enough holes for people to weave in their own stories or emotions and connect with the bits that speak to them. Something will speak to the listener, I hope, but it might not be every single line. I connect more with music that is personal and abstract and makes me feel something, so I want to do that for other people…”

Ruth Lyon releases her album Poems & Non Fiction via Pink Lane Records on 13^th June. She performs at Reflex Records, Newcastle on Wednesday 18^th June.