Lavender Fire’s first album, From Shadows to Light, was a concept album about healing, self-acceptance, and coming out of the closet later in life. East is a continuation of that journey, but being told from a new perspective: someone else other than her.
East is a driving song (no pun intended) inspired by the story of Lavender Fire’s parents and their journey from California to the US East Coast to start a new life in the early 1980s. The cover art includes actual pictures that her parents took while on that 3,000-mile-plus journey across endless deserts, empty rural roads, plains, hills, and countrysides.
The song begins in California, with images of rolling hills, coyotes singing in the night, and the Santa Ana winds blowing the smog out to sea (“the Anas blowing in”). Our characters are looking back at what they’re leaving behind (“leave the family ties to wash up in the sea”….. later “leave the angels lights and the earth trembling, all their little storms I hid behind my eyes”), everything they’ve ever known, to find a new place: the US East Coast, over 3,000 miles away from where they grew up.
“Looking ahead, rolling Maryland
Looking ahead, I hold his hand
Go east, young girl, go east young girl, young girl”
Everything powers along as the arrangement slowly builds and our characters are getting close to their destination (“drive through the winter, a beautiful unknown….. all this green waiting for us, all this green, no more brown and dust but something new with you.”) The song arrangement is simple: voice and piano. However, it’s much more than that. Given Lavender Fire’s background as a choirgirl, there are lots of vocal layers to add more to the story, especially at the end of the song. The song grows with more vocal layers until you reach three different countermelodies, each of them urging the characters toward the unknown waiting on the other side.
Oooooo (go east young girl) (nothing’s left for you here)
Before it settles down to the hook again:
Go east…. go east young girl
Young girl
It’s fitting that a song about someone’s journey, had a long journey before being released! East began as an idea back in January 2018, nothing more than a voice memo slowly coming to life. As the years went on, the song became a staple of her shows, usually as an opening song for her live gigs. In 2025, Lavender Fire was chosen as a finalist in a local music contest based on her performance of this song.
Now, in 2026, almost eight years later, this song has reached its destination, much like the characters in this story.
**Available now on all streaming platforms:
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