kd lang

kd lang’s next album was released shortly after we moved to LA. It was a difficult time for us. Neither of us had jobs, what little money we had saved and had received as moving presents was quickly disappearing and there was nothing to take its place. I had proposed to G during our move, in a motel room in Scott’s Bluff, Nebraska (I’m quite the romantic), and now here we were, betrothed and broke, trying to get a toehold in LA.

That we moved to LA at all was entirely my fault. G was happy as could be in NYC, and her career was well on its way. I, however, was floundering badly. I couldn’t find any work at all in my chosen field – film and television – and grew increasingly depressed watching my life drip by while I prostituted myself as an office temp, making bad money to wear ill-fitting suits to work with people I didn’t respect in companies I couldn’t stand. Something had to change and as my friends started abandoning one coast for the other, I decided to go west while I was still a young man.

We were both old enough and had been through enough new situations to know that moving to LA was going to suck for a while, but it didn’t soften the blow. It still sucked. We moved during what the rest of the country considered fall, but what is known in LA as Santa Ana season. That’s when, for a few weeks, the winds change direction and instead of blowing in from the west, over the inviting, cool, humid Pacific, they blow in from the east, over the unforgiving, hot, arid desert. Thermometers scream red and the air is so hot and dry that it cracks your skin and toasts your sinuses. LA is not a particularly pretty city – especially in Hollywood, where we found our first apartment – and the scorching sun and thick layer of smog that accompanies the Santa Anas did nothing to improve matters.

Fortunately, we did have a lot of friends who had also just moved to LA and were also struggling to find some niche, so we were able to take comfort and solace in them. Plus, since we were all broke, we were able to hang out with each other and share meals and movies and lots of other cheap thrills. But the cheapest thrill of all was sex and, as it was sort of pre-honeymoon, G and I took full advantage of that. Too poor to eat out or go to concerts or even drive anywhere interesting, we found ourselves tumbling into bed after frustrating days of fruitless job searches and taking free comfort in each other’s arms. They were bad days, but the nights were pretty good.

Eventually, thanks to the aforementioned Russell, I did manage to get a job as an apprentice film editor for a company that makes straight-to-video “horror” films (horribly written, horribly directed and horribly acted – but well edited). It was a time-honored method for breaking into a business that everybody wanted to do, and there was some satisfaction that I was actually learning the trade I wanted to pursue, but I wasn’t actually getting paid for it, so it didn’t help our financial matters much. It was at this job that I first learned to love KCRW, as the first assistant listened to it all day, every day. Chris Douridas, the morning DJ, started playing a few cuts from kd lang’s upcoming album, Ingénue, and I already knew I was going to get it before I heard it, but hearing it made me want it even more. It had a different sound, something more polished and urban and sophisticated, and I went to Aron’s records the day it was released to by a copy for my beloved.

Except I couldn’t find it. It wasn’t on the wall that featured new releases and it wasn’t in the L bins – in fact, there wasn’t any kd lang in the L’s at all. Then I thought to look in the back of the store, in the country music ghetto, and I found it. It was a common problem at the time, kd had started off as a country singer and that’s what a lot of people knew her as, but this new album marched off into different territory, something less easily pigeonholed, and a lot of people didn’t know what to make of it. I snapped up a copy of Ingénue and rushed back home to wait for G’s arrival.

She had gotten a job working at a children’s center serving one of the worst areas of downtown LA, a place that was too scary for most people to drive through, let alone actually get out of the car and walk around in. It was a hard job, and she’d come home tired and depressed, trying to help care for people that society has largely abandoned and, though she knew she was doing good, she certainly wasn’t doing well, and it took a lot out of her. When I saw her climb the steps that led up from the courtyard of our building to our apartment, I slipped the CD in the player, and pressed play.

She opened the door, brow furrowed and bone weary, and plopped down next to me on the couch. She sighed and closed her eyes, happy to be at what passed for our home. I didn’t say anything. After a moment, she opened her eyes and looked around, listening intently. She glanced at me quizzically, and I produced the CD case. She grinned, gave me a kiss, and settled back into the couch to soak it all in.

G had been a fan of kd’s from the time she first heard Shadowland, but this new album was something else entirely, and its seductive siren song pulled G deep into the dark, soothing waters. And truly, Ingénue is a wonder to behold. Perfect, timeless pop songs in the tradition of the best popular songwriters (think '40s instead of '80s), impeccably arranged and gorgeously sung with supreme grace and confidence. Deeply personal, yet universally accessible, Ingénue marked a quantum leap for kd as an artist, and signaled her maturing style. We must’ve listened to that album a hundred times that first week, and when tickets for her concert went on sale, we eagerly sought them out, breaking open the piggy bank.