It’s early April, and Grammy-winning Americana artist Allison Russell has flown to Toronto to guest judge on Canada’s Drag Race in the country where she grew up. She’s just released an updated version of “Superlover,” a song from her Birds of Chicago days that she sang nightly with her Rainbow Coalition ensemble while on tour with Hozier last year.
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“Tears of rage, tears of grief / Palestine, Israel to Tennessee / We need a superlove / Need a superlover,” Russell declares in the new version of the song she sings with artist, activist, and former Eurythmics front woman Annie Lennox. In the song’s video, Russell gently plays the banjo while she and Lennox wrap their voices around the other’s in a plea for understanding in these terrifying times.
“I think a superlover is anybody who leans into empathy and forbearance and compassion and understanding and forgiveness and nonviolence,” Russell says. “The song has sort of unfortunately continued to evolve as we continue to have horrific [conflict].”
“I’m not just talking wars and invasions … but the violence that we’re seeing right here at home. … There’s an outright war happening on our trans siblings, health care being denied, people dying, actually, from that,” she says.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration has targeted immigrants of all statuses. That is immediate and personal for Russell as she considers reentering the U.S. from Toronto.
“Our own nation’s democracy is next to falling at this point. We have extrajudicial deportations. I’m at high risk for that. There’s people like me with a green card and brown or Black skin who are being deported every day,” Russell says. “Who knows if I’ll be let back into the country when I come back, because having your documents is no longer a guarantee of that.”
Dana Trippe
“Superlover” was released on Birds of Chicago’s 2018 album, Love in Wartime. Russell has since released two solo albums, Outside Child (2021) and The Returner (2023). (The queer performer’s ode to an early girlfriend who was also her escape from violence, “Persephone,” from Outside Child, has become a touchstone for sapphic fans.) In response to Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signing bills banning gender-affirming care for youth and restricting drag in her home state in 2023, Russell organized the life-affirming Love Rising concert to benefit LGBTQ+ causes. A year later, she won the Grammy for Best American Roots Performance for “Eve Was Black.”
Related: Queer Music Thrived at Nashville's Love Rising LGBTQ+ Benefit Concert
Along the way, she became a part of the “Joni Jammers,” including Brandi Carlile, Lucius, SistaStrings, Celisse, and Lennox, who’ve supported Joni Mitchell’s return to the stage in recent years. Russell brings her singular voice and clarinet solos to Mitchell hits. She and Lennox met at a three-day celebration of music and Mitchell at the Gorge Amphitheatre in Washington State in 2023. They were an instant match as musicians and activists. Lennox has advocated for women and children with HIV or AIDS for decades, and both women have been outspoken about the horrors in Palestine.
“I think that both she and I are sensitive empaths who’ve lived a fair bit of trauma each in our own way. I think we’re aligned in the sense that we don’t have an arbitrary line drawn between what is personal and what is political,” Russell says.
Russell wasn’t even a year old when Lennox had her first hit with Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams” in 1983.
“I’ve been listening to Annie Lennox my whole life. My mom loved her music. I can’t think of one person who doesn’t know ‘Sweet Dreams’ and dancing to it,” she says. They’ve since become chosen family. “My daughter calls her Granny Annie,” Russell shares.
Russell calls these times “a global phenomenon of the rise of authoritarianism and fascism and far-right domination, hierarchical extraction, exploitation, violence, greed, hoarding,” adding, “Obviously, it’s terrifying when America does it because we have the dominant military in the world and a terrifying arsenal of weapons, and we’ve been doing a lot of damage already.”
“We’ll do more, apparently, until there is a critical mass of enough of us being superlovers to say ‘Enough,’” she says.
Still, Russell sees solace and light in community building onstage and off.
“I believe we are capable of better. I know Annie also believes that, and to me, every day is an opportunity for harm reduction,” Russell says of hope. “I’m not under any delusion that all violence will end and everybody will love each other, but there’s ways that we can chip away at the severity of harm.”
Watch the official "Superlovers" video here:
