Name: Lucy Kitchen
Nationality: British
Occupation: Singer, songwriter
Current release: Lucy Kitchen's new album In The Low Light is out February 27th 2026 via Make My Day.
Current event: Lucy Kitchen is currently touring to support the new album. Catch her live at one of these German dates:

18.03. Düsseldorf – ZAKK
20.03. Osnabrück – Lagerhalle
21.03. Meppen – Höltingmühle
23.03. Lübeck - Tonfink

Local recommendation: I live in a little market town in South England. I would recommend that anyone who visits takes the walk past the old mill along by the river. Sometimes you see kingfishers and it’s beautiful, particularly in early summer when there’s flowers lining the banks.
Topic I am passionate about but rarely get to talk about: I’m not sure I would say really passionate but I love my garden and my roses and taking time just out there with my hands in the dirt and my face in the sun. Simple pleasures. I always wanted to be an interior designer if I wasn’t a musician, or a florist.  

If you enjoyed this Lucy Kitchen interview and would like to stay up to date with her music, visit her official homepage. She is also on Instagram, Facebook, and bandcamp.



Do you think that some of your earliest musical experiences planted a seed for your interest in writing lyrics or poetry? How and when did you start writing?

I think so. I started playing flute when I was 8 and music was a big part of my life from then. When I was about 15 I started listening to folk and country and started writing some initial lyric ideas.

My parents bought me a guitar when I was 16 and as soon as I could play a couple of chords I started writing songs.

Entering new worlds and escapism through music and literature have always exerted a very strong pull on me. What do you think you are drawn to most when it comes to writing?

I have always written from a pretty personal angle, sometimes it almost feels like a diary - I can pinpoint in most of my songs where I was and what was happening in my life when I wrote them.

Along with that I am drawn to the seasons, cycles and nature with a bit of myth and folklore thrown in.

What were some of the artists and albums which inspired you early on purely on the strength of their lyrics? What moves you in the lyrics of other artists?

The first album that inspired me lyrically was Nanci Griffith’s ‘Little Love Affairs.’



Shawn Colvin's ‘Fat City’ was another, and when I was 17, someone introduced me to ‘Blue’ by Joni Mitchell and that was like another world opening up.



In other people’s lyrics I am drawn to a mix of personal experiences, strong imagery, a sense of place and writers who have a poetic turn of phrase. It has to move me though above all else.

It is sometimes said that “music begins where words end.” What do you make of that?

I think music can sometimes easier express what we are feeling than just words. Some feelings are almost too big to put into words but the swell of an orchestra can express it perfectly.

I like the idea of space within music, what you feel in between the notes and how the music then transports you somewhere else with where it moves next.

I have always considered many forms of music to be a form of poetry as well. Where do you personally see similarities? What can music express which may be out of reach for poetry?

For sure. I think in the flow and the way it can be structured, as well as how it connects us to our inner world.

I think music is able to summon a feeling without having to explain it and in some ways it can be a less complicated way of feeling everything.

On the basis of a piece off In The Low Light, tell me about how the lyrics grew into their final form and what points of consideration were.

Some songs I wrote straight as songs but a few of the songs started as mini poems that I then turned into songs. “Winter King” and “The Ways We Were” both started out as poems that then called to be put to music.

“Blue Light” I wrote in two halves, one half I wrote a couple of years before I added the second half. “In My Corner” I wrote very quickly, in two sittings, with guitar and melody with the words all together.

Do you tend to start writing with what will be the first line of the finished lyrics? The chorus? At a random point? What are the words that set the process in motion?

It varies from song to song.

I am constantly writing the odd line or more down and sometimes these kickstart a song, sometimes as an opening line but sometimes I go back and find a line that I’ve written somewhere that finishes a song.

I would say I often start with a verse and it flows from there and I don’t tend to change too many words once I’m writing something into a song.

I'd love to know how you think the meaning or effect of an individual song is enhanced, clarified or possibly contradicted by the EPs, or albums it is part of. Does the song, for example, need to be consistent with the larger whole?
 
I think songs can be their own individual element when part of an EP of album, there doesn’t have to be an overarching theme. But there needs to be some kind of thread either through the words or the music or production that ties everything together.

If a song is part of an album or EP where there is a strong tie then I think that can enhance the whole experience of listening it in full.

When you're writing song lyrics, do you sense or see a connection between your voice and the text? Does it need to feel and sound “good” or “right” to sing certain words? What's your perspective in this regard of singing someone else's songs versus your own?  

I definitely have a sense of my voice within my writing. And, when I have written on collaborative projects, it always still has to feel like my voice, even when the music is very different.

When I sing someone else’s songs I tend to try and find a synchronicity between what the song means, and my own experiences that I can pull on to gain emotional connection with the song and then translate that in my performance.

Creativity can reach many different corners of our lives. Do you feel as though writing song lyrics or poetry is inherently different from something like making a great cup of coffee?

There is an art to both writing and making a great cup of coffee … and I do love a good cup of coffee!

If you approach mundane tasks with a mindfulness then they can be a springboard to writing. And I often write in my head while doing mundane things.

But I think the inherent difference for me is that making something or doing something mundane tends to be external, whereas writing is more of a reflection of my inner landscape.