The singer and guitarist Annie DiRusso was recently back in Croton-on-Hudson, the sleepy Hudson River town where she was brought up. DiRusso, who is twenty-five, was preparing for an appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and trying to rework the lyrics to “Legs,” a new single, so that it might be suitable for network television.
Much of the pleasure of DiRusso’s songwriting is in its frankness. “My favorite music is always when I’m, like, Wow, I’ve had that exact thought before, but never in my life would I have said it out loud,” she said. She was leaning on a picnic table near the New Croton Dam, a three-hundred-foot, hand-hewn structure that, upon its completion, in 1906, was the tallest dam in the world. She had on a faded black off-the-shoulder top and wore her hair in choppy bangs. “I wouldn’t say I’m very confrontational in my everyday life,” she said, watching sheets of water cascade over granite. “I think I’m honest, but maybe not to this degree. The songs are my chance to figure out how I’m feeling.”
That afternoon, she was having trouble finding a satisfying substitute for the word “fuck” to sing on Kimmel. “Legs” is a propulsive and dissonant pop-punk song about an intoxicating romantic entanglement—a situationship, to use the parlance of the era—that might undo her sanity. “We kiss like we’re talking,” DiRusso sings, her voice clear yet full of longing. The guitars scrape; the chorus pummels:
The new word needed bite; at the very least, it needed to be funny. She mulled the virtues of “smash,” and briefly considered “bone,” before deciding to punt on the first chorus (“I don’t give aaaaaa / If we f— or we date,” she would sing) and submit to being bleeped on the second.
DiRusso, whose début album, “Super Pedestrian,” was released in March, grew up listening to Taylor Swift, One Direction, and Paramore, although, on “Legs,” it’s hard not to hear echoes of Liz Phair’s “Fuck and Run,” a sad-girl banger from 1993. (“And what ever happened to a boyfriend? / The kind of guy who makes love cause he’s in it?”)
Lately, she has been working on how to balance her private life with the confessional nature of her work. “I’m dating right now,” she said. “I just kind of started seeing someone, ish. Second date yesterday.” She identifies as queer. “From the moment I started making music, everyone assumed I was gay,” she said. “Even though I’m using male pronouns all the time! People were still, like, ‘That’s such a gay song. It’s about unrequited love and a specific type of yearning.’ I didn’t really understand that.”
DiRusso is also trying to figure out whether it might be advantageous to self-censor in her lyrics. “I don’t want to do that,” she said. “I’ve talked to all my songwriter friends to get their takes on this. Everyone’s, like, ‘There’s really no answer of where the line is.’ Some people are just ruthless about it, which I can really respect, because it’s a song—it doesn’t belong to anyone. But then I’ve had moments where I’m, like, Really? Is this going to be my life? I’m going to write revealing or bitchy things about people that I love, and then release them? And disconnect from my relationships?”
After leaving the dam, she stopped in at the Blue Pig, an ice-cream shop where she worked when she was fourteen. She ducked behind the counter. “I feel very comfortable back here,” she said, scooping up a few samples. She used her paychecks to buy an electric guitar. “I loved interacting with customers,” she said. “It’s a very social job. Let’s just say the tips were rollin’ if I was behind the dipping cabinet!”
Her parents, who live around the corner, have been supportive of her career, even when she sings about the more toothsome details of her personal life. “My dad only cares when I say ‘fuck.’ There’s something happening in his brain that doesn’t let him understand how much I’m talking about sex,” she said. “My mom will be, like, ‘Oh, my God!’ She’ll call things out in front of my dad. ‘You’re talking about giving head!’ I can see her relating it to her own ex-boyfriends. My dad just pretends to zone out.” The tiresome boys in DiRusso’s songs—with their insecurities and their misery—seem to be timeless. “Yeah,” she said, with a laugh. “Everyone’s got a guy.” ♦
