Imelda May didn’t just make another rockabilly record. She made a grown-up album that sounds like late nights, too much wine, and a phone that buzzes with all the wrong names. “It’s an honest album,” she says, half-laughing like she’s already bracing for your judgment. “It’s my story. And I didn’t know what that story was until I wrote it.”
Turns out the story is heartbreak, new love, guilt, lust, and being 42 with zero desire to hide any of it. “You know, sometimes life bites you in the ass,” she shrugs. “I went through heartbreak. I fell in love again. I threw in the guilt too — I’m Irish, we love guilt.” She calls it selfish writing, but not in a dirty way: “You write for yourself first, but at the end you want connection. If even one person hears it and says, ‘Yeah, that’s me,’ then we’re bonded.”
She’s keenly aware she’s about to lose some old fans — the pompadour’s long gone, the rockabilly stomp traded for T Bone Burnett’s sultry production and Jeff Beck’s ghostly guitar. “I think I’ll lose a few fans, but that’s okay. I have to follow my heart, so I can hold my head high.” She’s not kidding about that head-high bit either: “It’s all well and good being the king of your own castle, but you’ve got to push yourself. Keep learning.”
Push she did — this record’s no foot-tapper, it’s a slow burn. “I wanted the album to be one of those where the more you listen, the more you hear,” she says. “Little flavors in the background you don’t catch until the tenth time. The musicianship is phenomenal. Jeff Beck’s on ‘Black Tears’ — he turns that guitar into a human vocal. It’s like singing a duet, dancing with his guitar.”
She talks about Beck and Jools Holland with the reverence of someone who knows they helped launch her. “They gave me really good opportunities when I was struggling. It just felt right to ask them to be on this album — a full circle, but in the right way.”
Of course, it wouldn’t be Imelda May without a little sass aimed at the world’s dumbest memo. Remember when a certain president told women to “dress like a woman”? May did — by showing up to the Brits in a tux. “I am a woman,” she says, deadpan. “I don’t need to make a major point about that. Just be a woman, wear clothes. Job done.”
If Life Love Flesh Blood is her most raw record yet, it’s because she didn’t plan it. “On the last album, I knew what I wanted before I wrote it. This one? No plan. And it was liberating. I’m 42. I’m single again after almost 18 years. Desire, lust, heartbreak — all of it. Why not write about the good bits too?”
Call it what you want — blues, torch songs, late-night confessional — Imelda May is just happy to be alive enough to sing about it. And if she loses a few rockabilly diehards along the way? “That’s fine,” she says, “because the only plan I had was to not have a plan.”
Listen to the interview above and then check out the video for "Call Me" below.
