Jehnny Beth Is Her Own Role Model on ‘Heroine’

Jehnny Beth dropped “Heroine,” the new single from her upcoming LP, To Love Is to Live, out June 12th.

“All I want is to never fall in love again,” the Savages singer claims in the opening lines over a chaotic, throbbing beat. She refrains “All I want” in each line, finishing with “to be a heroine” across dense layers of production.

“Heroine” follows the singles “Innocence,” “Flower” and “I’m the Man.”  To Love Is to Live is Beth’s solo debut, produced by Flood, who also recently worked with Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien on his solo LP, Earth. The album features contributions by the xx’s Romy Madley Croft, Idles’ Joe Talbot and Cillian Murphy.

“When I think of this song, I think of Romy from the xx strangling my neck with her hands in the studio,” Beth said in a statement. “She was trying to get me out of my shell lyrically, and there was so much resistance in me she lost her patience. The song was originally called ‘Heroism,’ but I wasn’t happy because it was too generic. Flood was the first one to suggest to say ‘Heroine’ instead of ‘Heroism.’ Then I remember Johnny Hostile late at night in my hotel room in London saying, ‘I don’t understand who you are singing about. Who is the Heroine? You are the Heroine.’

“The next morning, I arrived early in the studio and recorded my vocals adding ‘to be’ to the chorus line: ‘All I want is to be a heroine,’” she continued. “Flood entered the studio at that moment and jumped in the air giving me the thumbs-up through the window. I guess I’m telling this story because sometimes we look around for role models and examples to follow, without realizing that the answer can be hidden inside of us. I was afraid to be the heroine of the song, but it took all the people around me to get me there.”