Singer-songwriter John Duff chatted about working with Tony winner Lillias White (“Hadestown”) on their new collaborative single.
Lillias White was the first woman to play the role of Hermes in “Hadestown” on Broadway.
On reuniting with Lillias White on “Hoe is Life,” he said, “After Lillias and I recorded ‘High Heels’ she called me and asked if we could do another. I wrote one track just for her, but she didn’t want to do that one.”
Duff continued, “We were already in the studio though – so I opened up my folder of demos and said, ‘you pick.’ She went through about five songs – but when she heard ‘Hoe is Life,’ she said: ‘This one is for me. You know I won the Tony Award for playing a hooker in 1997,’ which of course I knew.”
“I just wasn’t expecting her to pick it, after all: she was 70 at the time of recording. She really connected with the lyrics – they’re actually quite similar to the song ‘My Body’ from ‘The Life’ (the show she won the Tony for). It was like a reprisal of her role as Sonya (the hooker with a heart of gold),” Duff elaborated.
This song is a rebuttal to societal expectations that channels Duff’s reflections on the paradoxes of modern gay life.
On the inspiration for the single, he said, “I wrote ‘Hoe is Life’ back in 2017 – the same day I wrote ‘Hokie Pokie,’ and a song called ‘Hoops’ that was on Willam’s last album.”
“I guess I was just feeling very empowered in my sexual freedom that day,” he expressed. “It’s funny being gay in a modern world – we fought for so long for the freedom to be gay, and in the process we’ve become so heteronormative.”
“I honor whatever path anyone chooses, but there’s something so fun about saying ‘you’ to societal expectations and living your fantasies,” he added.
Their new single is available on digital service providers by clicking here.
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