Bet on Juliana Hatfield to deliver a gritty dose of faith when the world needs it the most. The Boston rock staple this week (September 9) released “Scratchers,” the first single from her forthcoming December album Lightning Might Strike. It’s a straight-faced narrative about balancing that “born to win” feeling and a string of bad news — and putting money down for a pile of scratch tickets anyways.
“It was a difficult time for me when I started working on this album,” Hatfield says. “I had just uprooted myself from the city apartment building where I’d been living for 20 years to a house in a more rural town two hours away where I knew no one when one of my best friends died (‘Ashes’), and then my dog died (‘Constant Companion’), then my mother was diagnosed with esophagus cancer (‘Scratchers’).”
While Hatfield makes direct mention of her “octogenarian mother” — “sometimes she too plays the numbers” — “Scratchers” is a dogged kernel of hope for anyone who’s not thrilled with their odds. It’s yet another display from Hatfield that you can hold optimism without necessarily smiling and skipping around about it.
Tune in below, and preorder Lightning Might Strike — due out December 12 via American Laundromat Records — here.
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