The Staying Power of Lisa Loeb, in Motherhood, Music, and Creativity
Lisa Loeb sits across from me, holding a pale pink, Fender Stratocaster, her fingers stretching across several frets. She’s plucking the first few notes of her 1994 hit, “Stay (I Missed You),” and I’m in awe of the way her hand moves up the neck of the guitar, shapeshifting smoothly as she moves from one chord to the next.
“It’s really easy,” she claims, as I attempt to keep up, regretting that I declined her offer to teach me to play the version with the capo on the 6th fret. Still, I’m grateful for the offer (which came, graciously, after I mentioned how much I struggled to play the capo-free version a few years ago, eventually giving up).
While Loeb’s only giving me a mini guitar lesson over Zoom — she’s in LA, and I’m on the East Coast — it’s one of the coolest full-circle moments of my life.
“Stay,” the Billboard #1 hit song from the Gen X film Reality Bites, which catapulted Loeb from the NYC circuit into the musical big leagues, turned 30 in Spring 2024. I remember hearing it on alt-rock radio stations constantly that summer, shortly after I picked up a guitar for the first time.
“No one ever talks about how good a guitar player you are,” I gush into the camera during our interview.
That’s when she corrects me: Many people, in fact, have told Loeb that exact same thing.
“Yes, they do,” she says. “And it’s often within the context of, ‘I don’t know if people tell you this, but you’re a really great guitar player,’” says Loeb, who credits her playing skills to hard work. “You have to be disciplined to find accidents and to find ideas and then to develop ideas on guitar and in songwriting. ‘Stay’ is interesting. I’ve realized recently that one of the things I’m most proud of with the song is the structure is very unusual.”
Just before we get to the chords that correspond to the song’s first verse — “You say/I only hear what I want to” — my free Zoom meeting cuts off. But her words stay with me for hours, as I consider my own internal biases and cultural conditioning.
Like Loeb, I’ve spent most of my adult life working harder to prove myself. I remember all too well the feeling of being the only girl in Guitar Center in the late 1990s. While females now account for half of all new guitar sales, it’s fair to say that in 1994, a guitar-wielding Loeb was a part of a rarer breed.
Yet that is just one of the reasons why Loeb’s career continues to endure and inspire..
Sure, she had the good fortune of striking up a friendship with Reality Bites star Ethan Hawke, which reportedly helped her music reach the right ears. But Loeb’s staying power for the last 30 years can only be credited to the woman herself — a creative, talented songbird with a positive attitude and a rock-solid work ethic.
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Creative Endeavors
Younger listeners who haven’t heard Loeb’s most popular ’90s songs like “Stay,” “I Do” or “Do You Sleep?” have probably encountered Loeb in another way. The Dallas native’s expansive career has taken her from music to acting — including cameos in TV series like Gossip Girl and Fuller House — to launching her own eyewear line.
Loeb’s first foray into children’s music came in 2003, when she and her musician friend Elizabeth Mitchell (also her former bandmate from Liz and Lisa) released Catch the Moon, a whimsical album accompanied by an illustrated storybook.
But it’s the 2010s — the decade that saw Loeb navigating the transition to marriage, motherhood, and family life — that brought to light some of her most widely acclaimed children’s music.
Her 2016 Amazon Music album Feel What You Feel, which is loaded with funky, high-energy pop and rock tunes centered on self-love, won her a GRAMMY for Best Children’s Album. Around the same time, she was tapped to write songs for the Amazon series If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, which is based on the book.
“When you’re on own, it’s all coming from your own mind, your own ideas, your own schedule, which, as a mom, can be really complicated,” says Loeb. “But when you’re collaborating on a project with a deadline, with a group of people who have really interesting opinions, you end up making things that you wouldn’t make. It’s like a puzzle that needs to be solved. And I love puzzles.”
But while Loeb’s a celebrity musician, she’s also a normal mom of two growing kids: a 12-year-old son and a 14-year-old daughter. She gets how bittersweet it is to, say, part with Pokémon cards or books her kids no longer read (though she admits to keeping two copies of ‘Goodnight Moon’ in English and Hebrew, respectively).
And as her kids grow older, it’s hard not to compare Loeb’s own 1970s-80s Texas upbringing to her children’s Los Angeles upbringing.
“When was a kid, I wanted to do dance, ballet, jazz, musical theater, tap dance, ice skating and choir and piano lessons and guitar lessons,” says Loeb. “I wanted to do everything. But I was growing up in Dallas, and they were a little out of reach. And here our kids are in the middle of Los Angeles. They have lots of doors that are open. I’m trying to keep remembering that they are not me, while reminding them that they have these opportunities and that we’re willing to support their interests.”
Part of that process is letting go of expectations, as every parent knows.
“I just read an article in The New York Times that said something like, ‘the path to success for high schoolers is doing less,” she continues. “You know, instead of doing more, do less.”
Staying the Course
If anyone’s doing less, however, it’s certainly not Loeb. After spending this past Spring touring with Lyle Lovett, she released a children’s album, That’s What it’s All About, with the Hollow Trees, seven-piece folk Americana band that plays in the Los Angeles area.
The record and accompanying art are nostalgic and charming, like something I’d hear at a farmer’s market.
“The album is specifically supposed to sound more old-timey,” says Loeb. “That’s why I worked The Hollow Trees, because I loved their sound so much. I saw them playing at a children’s music event, and I immediately was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I love this band.’ Their own songs are really clever and funny, and they just have the perfect amount of authenticity and appreciation for the kitschiness of different eras, and they’re also just really kind people and great musicians.”
She also has a handful of gigs lined up this fall and winter, including Soundside Music Festival in Bridgeport, Conn., this Saturday, as she prepares to celebrate the 30th anniversary of her September 1995 debut album, Tails.
Grownups and kids won’t have to worry that she’ll skip the classics, as her catalogue of newer material expands.
“I remember we played as a set at CBGB’s after the song ‘Stay’ had gotten really big … and [one band member] said, ‘we’re not gonna play that song,’” Loeb recalls. “And I’m like, ‘people drove here from other cities to come see us play, like, it’s still like a regular song of ours. Why be against it now that it’s popular? You should just go from your heart, have the best intentions, don’t look down upon your own art and what you make. Even if it becomes popular in a different context, it doesn’t really matter. You know, just be grateful.”
Marisa Torrieri Bloom is the editor and founder of Rockmommy.
