For her latest album The Deep End (April 7, Baroque Folk), Susanna Hoffs has teamed with legendary producer Peter Asher to record the artists that have been speaking to her in recent years: Billie Eilish, Joy Oladokun, Brandy Clark, Holly Humberstone, and Ed Sheeran, alongside her old favorites from Squeeze, Colin Blunstone, Yazoo and more.
The Deep End will be released the same week as her debut novel, This Bird Has Flown (April 4, Little, Brown), described by Hoffs as “the redemption of a one-hit-wonder. It’s a story of sex, love, and rock and roll.” The book has already been acquired by Universal Pictures, setting a feature adaptation with Liza Chasin and Bruna Papandrea producing.
Hear Susanna’s radical reinvention of The Rolling Stones’ “Under My Thumb” below. “I love The Rolling Stones!” says Hoffs. “I’ve listened to that song on repeat since it came out in the mid-’60s. I had an epiphany when I really thought about what the song is about, and it ignited this idea to do my own spin on it - to change the gender and see how it felt. What if the roles are/were reversed and the boy is under her thumb? It was exhilarating to give it a new spin, to flip it on its head, or on its ass. It’s a sassy, irreverent song, so it was extremely pleasurable to turn the tables.”
Hoffs is backed by Waddy Wachtel on guitar, Ledisi on background vocals, bassist Leland Sklar, Russ Kunkel on drums, Jeff Alan Ross on vibes, with a string quartet arrangement by Steve Aho. She has also released a dance remix of “Under My Thumb,” produced by Oak Felder. Listen below.
Thematically, Leslie Gore’s 1963 hit “You Don’t Own Me” is the flip side of “Under My Thumb,” but given Hoffs’ reinterpretation of the latter song, they’re companion pieces as anthems of self-empowerment. “I just thought, It’s an old song; we all know it, but why not take a stab at it? It was cathartic to sing it.”
“You Don’t Own Me” is the oldest song on the album. The newest is “Deep End,” a 2022 ballad written and recorded by English singer-songwriter Holly Humberstone. “When Peter shared this song with me, I was utterly entranced. It was so moving, so beautiful, so rich and deep with emotion and so vivid in the imagery as well. It’s such a special song that we ended up naming the album after it.
With the Bangles, on her acclaimed Under the Covers series with Matthew Sweet, and her distinguished solo career, Susanna Hoffs has established herself as one of the most adept and affecting interpretive singers of the last four decades. “I aim for the emotion to come straight to the surface when I sing—I just go for it,” she offers. “I try to be as vulnerable and emotional as the song permits.”
The Deep End tracklisting:
"Under My Thumb" (The Rolling Stones)
"Deep End" (Holly Humberstone)
"If You’ve Got A Problem" (Joy Oladokun)
"Afterglow" (Ed Sheeran)
"Time Moves On" (Phantom Planet)
"Say You Don’t Mind" (Denny Laine)
"Black Coffee In Bed" (Squeeze)
"West Coast" (Jason Schwartzman)
"Would You Be So Kind" (Dodie)
"When The Party’s Over" (written by Finneas O’Connell for Billie Eilish)
"Pawn Shop" (Brandy Clark)
"You Don’t Own Me" (Leslie Gore)
"Only You" (Yazoo)
"Under My Thumb":
"Under My Thumb" remix:
(Photo - Shervin Lainez)
