Nebraska

Album: Work It Out (2015)
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Songfacts®:

  • Lucy Rose started writing this song when she was on the road in America. She told The Independent: "I had read a book the year before called My Antonia by Willa Cather which is set in Nebraska and it hugely inspired me to write this song, something that's never happened to me before. But it only got finished once I got home and sat at the piano.

    It was weird because I never thought it would end up on the album so I kind of didn't finish it but one day when I was playing around with the song in the live room of the studio, Rich Cooper (the producer) asked me what I was playing and insisted we record it and out came Nebraska."
  • The song's Christopher McGill-directed music video stars EastEnders actor Danny Dyer, playing against type as a drag queen. It also features cameos from Ghostpoet, Rae Morris and Josef Salvat. Rose said:

    "Chris McGill (owner of Dusthouse productions) was a school friend of my sisters and had always told me to get I touch if I fancied doing something. I didn't know if he was serious but it turned out he was. We went to the pub talked for hours about the song and meaning behind it but also the constraints of society and sometimes the way the music industry made me feel, especially when it comes down to aesthetics and fitting the mould. The odd conversation 'if we make you look great people will be more inclined to buy you music' had been wearing me down and I wanted to do something that was the opposite.

    Chris came up with the idea and I loved it straight away but in all honesty was absolutely bricking it sending it to Danny. How could I ask Danny to do what we were asking him to do? The miracle to this story is that almost an hour after I sent over the treatment he replied saying lets do it, I've always wanted to be a drag queen."

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