Julia Holter - Lucette Stranded on the Island

"His billhook caught their eyes, blood is on his billhook, his billhook caught my neck, how unnaturally I gaze."

Album: Have You In My Wilderness [4th album]
Genre: Art Pop, Chamber Pop, Baroque Pop
Release: September 25th 2015
Length: 6.46
Producer: Julia Holter & Cole M.G.N.
Vocalist: Julia Holter [age 30]
Label: Domino Recording Company

Official Audio


Live on WFUV in 2015

Charts, Streams & Sales

Spotify: Over 1 million
YouTube Music: Over 100 thousand

Credits

The album liner notes credit violin, clarinet, cello, saxophone, bass, keyboards [Julia Holter] and percussion although it isn't specified by track.

Details

• The song tells the story of Lucette d’Orgeville, a character from the short story Chance Acquaintances by Colette.
  


• "There’s a Colette story “Chance Acquaintances” where a girl named Lucette follows a new lover onto his yacht but he attacks her, steals her stuff + leaves her there. she escapes but dies of blood poisoning. So thought I would make a song about that lol" (Julia Holter on Twitter / X)


• "I was interested in the state of waking up from being unconscious in an unknown place. I wanted to make a song that was kind of grotesque that captures that moment of confusion and gradually the mind gets to remember what happens, and you start to see things emerge more clearly." (Julia Holter speaking to Mojo Magazine)


• This is not the first time Julia Holter has based her work on a story by Colette. Her 2013 album Loud City Song was based on Gigi (1944). The 2019 film, starring Keira Knightley ,portrays her life.
  
• Wrote from the point of view of a dying murder victim.
  

Artwork