Adrianne Lenker delivered one of 2020’s musical highlights with her quarantine album Songs, and deservedly, she has made multiple TV appearances performing songs from the album. She did so again last night, wielding an acoustic guitar as she sang “Dragon Eyes” on The Tonight Show.
Lenker previously told Apple Music of the song, “That one feels the most raw, undecorated, and purely simple. I want to feel a sense of belonging. I just want a home with you or I just want to feel that. It’s another homage to love, tenderness, and grappling with my own shadows, but not wanting to control anyone and not wanting to blame anyone and wanting to see them and myself clearly.”
She also previously describer the environment in which the song was recorded, saying of her time in a western Massachusetts cabin, “I was basically lying in the dirt half the time. [Engineer Phil Weinrobe and I] went with the flow. A lot of the focus was on getting nourishment from our meals. We cooked directly on the woodstove, and we went on walks to the creek every day to bathe. […] I’m grateful that this music has come into existence. These songs have helped me heal. I hope that at least in some small way this music can be a friend to you.”
Watch Lenker perform “Dragon Eyes” on Colbert above.