Our Song of the Day comes from Lady Nade with a beautiful cover of Gillian Welch’s ‘Everything is Free’. The song featured on Gillian Welch’s highly-acclaimed 2001 album Time (The Revelator).
At the time of writing the song, Welch’s record label deal had expired, and she and Dave Rawlings had started their label, Acorny Records, and Time (The Revelator) was the first album to be released. Although the song was sparked by an article Welch had read about Napster, it was more about having your personal creative independence and passion threatened.
The song features the wonderful sounds of UK Americana Music Association instrumentalist of the year nominee Holly Carter on Pedal Steel and Daniel Everett on Bass and Guitar.
Lady Nade recently told followers, “I was first introduced to Gillian Welch when I was 18, I was looking for inspiration as a songwriter to prepare material to write my first album…” She later adds, “You know me, never one to stand back quietly when I see injustice and this is my way of talking about the current climate for keyworkers in our society ….planting seeds for 2023”, something she touches on further in the interview below.
You can find all the streaming links here.
I’ll admit, it seems a little weird sharing a song via Spotify when the focus of this song is based around fairness and recognition of the value, something that Spotify has been strongly criticised for. So, after hearing Lady Nade’s new single, I jumped on a Zoom call with her this morning to chat about the song and her reasons for wanting to cover it. We spoke for quite a while but below are parts of that conversation alongside some of her statements.
On 2nd December 2021, Lady Nade was invited to the House of Commons by Kevin Brennan MP (https://twitter.com/KevinBrennanMP) for a ‘Fix streaming’ reception. She says, “Gillian’s song was going round and round in my head as I learnt more about the reality of streaming revenue. Among those attending, pop songwriter Fiona Bevan revealed she’d earned just £100 for a track on Kylie Minogue’s number one album.”
It was very clear from chatting with Lady Nade that for her, the scope of this song was far wider than streaming issues – she was keen to talk about keyworkers and their working conditions, rights and the ongoing strikes. Not surprisingly, she felt this was the perfect time to pay tribute to this timeless song. In a personal statement, she revealed her anguish, stating, ‘It’s sad that in 2023 we’re still having to fight for basic rights and fair pay for the keyworkers that serve us.’
The more we spoke, the more ironic the situation felt; it’s not difficult to appreciate the conflict many musicians find themselves in. She said: “It’s really hard because you have this model which makes you kind of conflict yourself as a musician, because the model’s saying, as an artist you need to…get your music on Spotify, get your followers up and get your music out there and streaming.” She also shared how some organisations that artists often seek funding from are asking ‘what are your spotify numbers and followers’ in order to support your application.
Lady Nade added, “The streaming model is actually saying ‘I’m only going to give you a very small percentage in comparison to the percentage that the streaming platform earns from you doing that’. As an emerging artist you have to decide whether you make those choices, to actually put my music out there, get it streamed and try and get it a to a point where I can create revenue even though it’s not what I should be getting, but it’s more revenue than not releasing at all, and not having my music and gigs that will give me an income that will pay for that release. Or I just say ‘no’ and release nothing or release it and make people aware of the conflict that’s happening…”
“I choose to say ‘I’m going to be releasing my music, I’m recognising these poor conditions that musicians and keyworkers are working in, but we’re going to do it anyway.'”
Lady Nade was keen to highlight how important it is to share messages through her music…with this single, she said: “here’s a song, it’s about the irony of how everything is free, and within the release I want to highlight the current conditions for keyworkers; go and support them if you can because they’re passionate about what they’re doing, and what they’re doing is basically giving their time for free, and that’s also like musicians, so I’m relasing this song by an artist who spoke about the irony of streaming to highlight the importance of while you are streaming this song, go and buy a physical album of mine, if you like this, then go and buy some merch, if you can.”
“I’m going to be putting out my music and my messages and I just want to say however which you choose to access that, just know that at the moment, this isn’t the fairest way that we could be having this exchange, but whilst we’re trying to talk to the people in charge of how these systems run, these are things that you could be doing in the meantime.”
In a personal statement, she said:
The irony of this song is that it was originally written at the very start of streaming back in 2001, and here we are in 2023 when streaming services are still not paying artists fairly.
I appreciate what streaming platforms mean for artists; even though financially, we don’t always win, we still need to have numbers for career development, so at the same time, this is about coming together and using music to move people, grow awareness and support for fair pay and fair play.
For Lady Nade’s upcoming live dates, including AMAUK Awards Show (26 Jan) and A Celebration for International Women’s Day (with Michele Stodart, Rachel Sermanni, Ana Silvera and Roxanne De Bastion at Bush Hall on 6th March), visit – https://ladynade.co.uk/live/
Lady Nade at Folk Alliance International
Lady Nade is showcasing at Folk Alliance International Feb 1st- 5th, so make sure you catch her if you’re there. Her official showcase is at Washington Park Place 1 at 7pm on Thursday, 2nd Feb, and she will also be showcasing as part of Horizons presented by British Underground –
Thu 11:00 – 11:25pm Horizons Unplugged (544)
Sat 00:00 – 00:25am Horizons (539)
All showcases take place at the Westin Hotel, 1 East Pershing, Kansas City, MO 64108.
*All times quoted are CST
Website: https://ladynade.co.uk
Shop: https://ladynade.co.uk/shop/
Bandcamp for Music and Merch: https://ladynade.bandcamp.com