The title of Morgan Nagler\u2019s solo debut, I\u2019ve Got Nothing to Lose, and I\u2019m Losing It, speaks to the sort of wisdom you can only accrue after several decades in the game, the kind that compels you to put your name to an album for the first time at the age of 47. But Nagler\u2019s MO was there from day one, as an 11-year-old child actor going for a bit part as a popular girl on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. \u201cI showed up and there were 200 girls there,\u201d says Nagler. \u201cI remember thinking, I\u2019m never gonna get this. So I decided to read the lines as a super-nerd.\u201d The producers rewrote the part and hired her to kiss Carlton.<\/p>\n
Today, Nagler lives in the same neighbourhood as Will Smith himself \u2013 not Bel-Air but a semi-rustic enclave of Malibu, California, albeit in the guesthouse of her friends\u2019 place rather than a celeb mansion. She started acting around age five, after her family moved from rural Oregon to California. She did it for two decades, taking parts in shows including Frasier, Star Trek and Clueless. But, at 26, Nagler jacked it all in to pursue music after realising how fulfilled she was playing guitar in her trailer between takes. Some people told her she was making a mistake, but she knew otherwise. Music, says Nagler, \u201cis the only thing that makes me feel connected in any meaningful way. For me, that\u2019s way more important than comfort or stability. I\u2019ve always had this blind faith.\u201d<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve Got Nothing to Lose bears this out in gorgeous Americana full of tough optimism and casually persistent hooks: \u201cGood old-fashioned grassoline always gets me where I wanna go,\u201d she sings on Grassoline, a happy ode to weed so indelible it feels as if it\u2019s existed since the heyday of outlaw country. She\u2019s backed on the record by artists including Courtney Barnett<\/a>, Madi Diaz, Bethany Cosentino<\/a> (FKA Best Coast<\/a>) and Allison Crutchfield (Snocaps<\/a>), connections testament to her \u201clifer\u201d status in music. \u201cAlong with all her sunshine and wordplay there is a great, heavy ballast of human sorrow and compassion,\u201d another of her collaborators, Gillian Welch<\/a>, tells me over email. \u201cThat is the hallmark of great poetry, for me.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Morgan Nagler: Grassoline \u2013 video<\/p>\n The record gradually came together alongside Nagler\u2019s main gig as a co-writer for other artists including Haim<\/a>, Phoebe Bridgers<\/a> and Kim Deal<\/a>. \u201cThese songs were written because that\u2019s what I do,\u201d she says in her cheerful, scratchy voice, video calling from her boyfriend\u2019s studio in Los Angeles, lava lamps blooping in the corner. There was no grand plan. \u201cI was never gonna sit down and write a record that\u2019s going to represent me on my \u2018solo mission\u2019,\u201d she says. \u201cI just feel it\u2019s important to share ourselves with each other, because it\u2019s such an isolating time. Connecting to each other on a deep level is important because we make each other feel seen, and less alone, more connected to the universe, that we\u2019re able to do more positive things.\u201d<\/p>\n To be a professional songwriter you have to be a great hang, and Nagler clearly is; for an hour, her sunny sense of purpose makes me forget that I feel like a sickly Victorian orphan in week three of Britain\u2019s never-ending winter lurg, even if her excitement at LA having a rare bout of rain is hard to choke down.<\/p>\n Despite her early convictions, Nagler still took some nudging to pursue music properly. Her best friend is the musician Jenny Lewis<\/a>, also a former child star. They were vaguely aware of one another as kids on the circuit, but it wasn\u2019t until Nagler acted with Blake Sennett, Lewis\u2019s bandmate in Rilo Kiley,<\/a> that they connected. \u201cShe\u2019s been my champion,\u201d says Nagler. \u201cWhen I started writing songs in my trailer, I really had no intention of sharing. She forced me to do it, found my first guitar player, told me: you\u2019re gonna have a band.\u201d This became the Americana outfit Whispertown. \u201cShe paid for all my records to be recorded \u2013 then I pay her back; she always had me opening up for her.\u201d Nagler\u2019s glass-half-full mindset is immortalised in Rilo Kiley\u2019s 2004 song The Absence of God: \u201cAnd Morgan says, \u2018Maybe love won\u2019t let you down \/ All of your failures are training grounds \/ And just as your back\u2019s turned, you\u2019ll be surprised.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018I used to call it the \u201cpuke method\u201d- the song just comes out and who am I to mess with it?\u2019 \u2026 Morgan Nagler. Photograph: Christian Stavros<\/p>\n In 2006, Whispertown were supporting Lewis and the Watson Twins on the tour for that year\u2019s Rabbit Fur Coat album. They included a cover of David Rawlings and Welch\u2019s song Look at Miss Ohio on their set list. Unbeknown to Nagler, the respected duo were in the crowd one night. Two years later, Rawlings called and invited her to Nashville to spend six months writing with them. Nagler describes the experience as her version of going to college. \u201cI\u2019d come up in this very DIY mentality, and I used to call it the \u2018puke method\u2019 \u2013 the song just comes out and who am I to mess with it? They taught me craft \u2013 that, no, you sit with it, edit, refine the song to be the best; that it\u2019s not a good song unless you think it\u2019s a good song.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, the puke method unlocked something for Welch and Rawlings, who wrote the song Sweet Tooth with Nagler. \u201cMorgan has great faith in her own imagination and the power therein,\u201d Welch tells me. \u201cShe lets connections happen, even if the line of logical sense is broken. It\u2019s a deeper pathway. David and I were feeling very self-critical at the time, and it was super helpful to restore this sense of nonlinear playfulness in the writing.\u201d (Also key to being a great hang: Nagler \u201cmakes a mean braised brussels sprout,\u201d says Welch.)<\/p>\n As Nagler\u2019s bands kept ploughing their DIY furrow, other cowriting opportunities popped up. Whispertown supported the Breeders: Kim Deal admired Nagler\u2019s tiny stage shorts and her voice, and asked her to write together, which produced a few songs. \u201cI don\u2019t know if she remembers this,\u201d says Nagler, \u201cbut years back, we were taking a break on the patio, and she said, \u2018Morgan, not everyone is going to like you.\u2019 I was like, oh, you just hit me where it hurt!\u201d Then she realised: \u201cIt\u2019s almost the same lesson as from Gill and David, which is: do your thing, what you think is cool.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Morgan Nagler: Heartbreak City \u2013 video<\/p>\n Nagler ended up writing with Haim on their debut because Danielle Haim was playing guitar with Lewis; around 2019, she helped Bridgers finish her 2020 song Kyoto, which was nominated for best rock performance and best rock song at the 2021 Grammys. It made Nagler realise that she should formalise her own publishing deal and make a real go of songwriting, trying to help artists find their own voice: in recent years, she\u2019s been working with artists including Diaz, Tyler Ballgame and Claud. A session \u201cideally starts with a mini therapy session\u201d, she says. \u201cWhen I started, I would come in with several ideas of beginnings of songs, and I realised that it makes more sense to utilise the energy in the room, the special thing you have going on in the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n You may have clocked that Nagler\u2019s songwriting career started as the pandemic hit, not exactly a great time to be starting a new gig. Making a living as a songwriter in this day and age is \u201cabsolutely terrible\u201d, she says. \u201cIt\u2019s super depressing. Unbelievable. It\u2019s a 1% situation \u2013 you need a [cut on a] Beyonc\u00e9 song or something to fund the rest of your existence.\u201d The full effect of AI undercutting those limited revenue streams is still an unknown, she says. \u201cI think I\u2019m already a niche person and, having my hopeful spirit, I think niche might actually become more valuable because it\u2019s so easy now to sound perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n Nagler\u2019s own album is full of songs about pursuing your goals against the odds: \u201cFollow your gut \/ Nobody said it would be easy \/ I\u2019m hanging tough, but \/ My own medicine makes me queasy,\u201d she sings on the yearning, moonlit Greetings from Mars. She\u2019s proud to be putting out her first official solo record at age 47. \u201cI want to talk about it, because the older you are, the more experience in life you have to draw from,\u201d she says. \u201cThat is an important perspective. I am proud to have been able to shape a life where I\u2019m able to continue to make art, and I\u2019m completely dedicated to it. It feels like a real accomplishment, because it\u2019s not easy.\u201d<\/p>\n You can see the album title as bleak or optimistic, she says. \u201cI kind of hate the term \u2018toxic positivity\u2019, but I think it\u2019s important to be realistic and understand what\u2019s going on in the world, and it\u2019s equally important to continue to have hope.\u201d Going solo, she says, is \u201cchasing a dream, but not really \u2013 the dream is just to exist and be happy and put beauty in the world\u201d.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve Got Nothing to Lose, and I\u2019m Losing It is released via Little Operation on 13 March<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The title of Morgan Nagler\u2019s solo debut, I\u2019ve Got Nothing to Lose, and I\u2019m Losing It, speaks to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":529625,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[49,48,75,341],"class_list":["post-529624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=529624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/529625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}