The Love-In's "Pure Gold Baby" Is a Feminist Rallying Cry
Photo By: Eden Lauren
It’s with a sense of false traditionalism that The Love-In pulls you in. They’re a band with the aura of another era, a retro sound that hides its freshness in plain sight.
If anyone deserves the credit for that charm it’s their frontwoman, Laurel Sorenson, whose vocals drive the project well beyond its sonic shell to a superlative level. “Pure Gold Baby” was rooted in her exploration of early feminist literature, including the mainstays - Sylvia Plath's “Lady Lazarus” and Betty Friedan's “The Feminine Mystique.” “I read both books thinking I would see what it must have been like for women in the 1960s, but was shocked to find my own experiences reflected back at me,” says Sorenson.
Lyrically, those influences are channeled into a first-person account of a frustrated woman, sardonically calling her husband home with all the “Mad Men” era cliches one can conjure. Loren explains, “’Pure Gold Baby’ is about what it's like to try and live up to the ideal of the perfect woman. Trying to be someone's dream girl can turn you into a real nightmare.”
Instrumentally the song carries that theme with emotional vigor, creating a crescendo of tension that spills out of the bridge into a raw chorus that applies wry humor over brash lyrics. That is the nuanced art of The Love-In, propelled by Sorenson’s confident voice. The result is a track that’s as much of a nod to a different era as it is a reflection of our present age.
