Lola Lennox used to sneak into her parent’s basement to record songs she had written as a teenager. While that may sound like a typical pastime for emerging artists, not everyone is secretly laying down tracks behind Annie Lennox’s back. But that’s exactly the situation Lola found herself in: Daughter of performer Annie Lennox (of the Eurythmics) and director-producer Uri Fruchtmann (Spice World, The Importance of Being Earnest) Lola has upgraded her home studio of her younger years into her first single, “In The Wild,” debuting with her visionary video exclusively on Refinery29's The Drop.
A ballad of loss and grief, “In The Wild” is the first of four singles Lola is releasing in 2020. It’s a musical debut that mom Annie herself approves of, based on her excited comments on Lola’s Instagram. The video depicts the tension between real life and fantasy, especially at the end of a toxic relationship. It’s an intimate introduction, which is exactly what Lola wanted.
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“This is my first official single ever,” she told Refinery29 on a recent phone call. “I wanted something that wasn’t too upbeat and mid-tempo...I like to write ballads and songs that are sad and intimate.” The song isn’t depressing, but it does have a serious longing to it, leaving the listener imagining their own loves lost. It’s also a departure from the rest of the tracks we can expect from Lola later this year — “Pale,” “Lalala Love Me,” and “Back At Wrong” — which all represent different moods.
The “In The Wild” video, directed by Natalie Johns (Johns has worked with Lola’s mother as well as Childish Gambino, John Legend, and A$AP Rocky) features Lola searching for balance between fantasy and the suffocating partnership she currently finds herself in. “The chorus [of the song] is the escapism moment like, Let’s go into nature, and into the the wild, to let these issues be free,” she explained.
Nature is a major influence for Lola. Last year she contributed to the soundtrack and inner-monologues for animals in Discovery’s Serengeti series, giving literal voice to mother nature and her creatures. “Nature, to me, is the source of our existence,” she noted. “It really deeply clams me down and grounds me. I feel like we are living in a time where we are in front of screens all day, and going into nature gives us introspection. We need to respect nature, and connect to it.”
Check out the debut of “In The Wild,” below.