"Hard Girls" is the first track from Scottish singer-songwriter KT Tunstall's fifth album Kin (2016), which explores a very different aesthetic from her previous (deeply introspective, melancholic and folk-inspired) album Invisible Empire // Crescent Moon (2013). Having suffered through the death of her father and her divorce, and then contemplated leaving the record industry to pursue a career in scoring films in LA, Tunstall's latest studio output sees her embracing the light at the end of the tunnel, as well as the funky pop grooves from her debut album Eye to the Telescope (2004).
True to its recording location in sunny Southern California, the song is enjoyably bright, confident, optimistic, upbeat and energetic (there's even a cheerleader-esque bridge where Tunstall shouts 'Hey!/ You can do it!/ C'mon/ Let's go!'). There is, however, an undertone of pathos to this power-pop track. Tunstall has revealed that she gained inspiration for the song after attending a friend's electronic music concert, and developing some empathy with the concert-goers who were decked in black leather, PVC, and bondage gear:
“People looked amazing, and I’m in no way dissing people for expressing themselves. But at the same time, you feel like there’s an armor being put on, where you present yourself in the way you would like to be. The song is really about celebrating being vulnerable and allowing yourself to not always put yourself across as this hard-rock girl who drinks too much and swears all the time and gets crazy every Saturday night, or this guy who has to be macho and present himself in a way he thinks he’ll be accepted by other people. It’s really about losing your sh— and allowing yourself to be who you are.”
KT Tunstall, EW.com
Guitar-driven and radiating with self-empowerment and self-realization, "Hard Girls" gets through any tough and weathered exterior you might have to remind you that vulnerability is part of being human:
'Oh, well you soft girlsTrying to be hard girlsYou know that nothing changes (Nothing changes)'Cuz your hair's in your faceAnd all you good boysTrying to be bad boysYou know that nothing changes (Nothing changes)Just be yourself'
Lyrics:
