"If Hatfield sounds unusually direct on these songs, it's because she was writing from the eye of the storm. "I felt like I was having a long, slow nervous breakdown," she says. The honesty runs through tracks like "Falls Apart," "Ashes," and "Constant Companion," which were often written on the fly as she recorded. "The music comes easy, but the lyrics take longer," she admits. "I'll just stop mid-take to fill in the melodies with words.""
"Even the deceptively sunny "Popsicle" - which she says is "actually about my mind melting, not nostalgia" - shows how she counterbalances heaviness with crunchy, upbeat chords. Living alone in the woods gave her freedom but also slowed her process down. "The technology drains me, so sometimes I'm only good for an hour of work a day," she says. Still, Lightning Might Strike arrived right on time, and she's already thinking about what's next - including the next chapter of her covers series."
Juliana Hatfield wrote Lightning Might Strike during a year marked by major loss, depression, and a move from a longtime city apartment to a quiet house in the woods. The record turns personal rubble into power-pop with candid, often immediate lyrics alongside crunchy, upbeat chords. Songs such as "Falls Apart," "Ashes," and "Constant Companion" were frequently written on the fly while recording. The music flowed easily but lyric writing took longer, sometimes requiring mid-take additions. Solitude granted freedom but slowed daily productivity, and Hatfield is already planning future covers, including R.E.M.
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