Lynne Hanson jokes that "half my songs are about me and half aren't, and I'll leave it up to the listener to figure out." But in the case of "Long Way Home" from her upcoming seventh album Just Words, which Billboard premieres today (Jan. 14), Hanson is happy to identify herself as the subject.
"I've been sober for eight years now," she tells Billboard, "and I've made that long walk home from the bar or wherever I was coming home from many, many times in my life. So it's a really personal song for me. When I was writing it, I could really see the movie in my head. I could see the character walking on the street, always on a rainy night. There's a lot of movement to the song as well: The character's running away from things.
"Sometimes when you're writing about something that's very personal like that you can get into a little more detail, because you have walked in those shoes. That's why there's a lot of detail in that song, imagery, that's not necessary in other songs on the record."