Jackie Simons reflects on her self-titled debut
And song "Jersey City" on previous album
By D. Menzies
Nearly two years ago, Jackie Simons released her self-titled album. The Jersey City resident’s eight-track album of alternative music in an acoustic vein hums with simplicity, in addition to a layered approach that often makes for something almost choral. It’s a big contrast from Simons’ previous album, “dillydally,” which “is definitely like the most multilayered and polished thing that I’d ever done,” Simons told Chilltown Blues. While “dillydally” is notable for many things — including that production, being Simons’ 11th album and the song “Jersey City,” which we’ll return to later — Simons’ self-titled album marked another benchmark for her.
“The self-titled album is my first album I wrote and released since coming out as a trans woman,” Simons said. “So it was kind of very personal, and it made sense to – all the songs are written on acoustic – keep the recording very spare and minimalist … (which) felt appropriate for the songs and for what was going on in my life. It’s definitely the most stripped down and minimalist of anything I released.
“It’s also the first album that … there tends to be like a lot of humor in my music and a tendency to do left-field sort of things,” Simons added. “And for this album, the way that it came out, it’s kind of void of humor. It’s the only album that I’ve ever done that doesn’t have any humor on it.”
There is, however, a wit to the song lyrics. They occasionally evoke some of Simons’ influences, Judee Sill and Elliot Smith, and the rich overall sound for such a minimalist album evokes Sufjan Stevens. The latter’s sense of spirituality, she said, is something she identifies with in writing music.
“My process is … if I’m sitting down and writing a song if I notice myself intellectualizing it or ‘maybe I should go to this chord,’ I’ll kind of stop myself,” Simons said. “I only allow the songs to kind of come out on their own, without me getting in the way of the process. It had turned into a meditative thing for me, and that extends to the lyrics too. Sometimes they all come out spontaneously, and they usually come out in a way that mirrors the melody. Sometimes that ends up something more literal, and other times it ends coming out in a more abstract, sort of like a John Lennon meets Kurt Cobain kind of way – just kind of painting with words.”
The album’s first track, “Jenny Looks Out,” is definitely more literal, Simons explained. It’s loosely about her issues with alcohol.
On “Apologies to the Mailman,” among the highlights on the album for me, in which Simons sings the chorus, “Someone else make me apologize to the mailman in my mind,” she’s more sure about the landscape it paints than any exact meaning.
Another highlight, “Who Will Satisfy Your Law?,” is maybe in between these approaches. "Who will satisfy your law? (doo doo doo oo oo) Your automatic, autocratic cause."
“I think the song is getting at a feeling of not ascribing to any sort of rigid mode of belief or to setting restrictions on yourself, just because someone tells you that is what they think is most appropriate for your quality of living,” Simons said.
From Massachusetts to NYC to “Jersey City” and then Jersey City
“I’m originally from western Massachusetts,” Simons explained. “The first number of albums I did … my dad built a home studio in the basement, so my brother and I grew up kind of learning how to play everything and then recording our own stuff in our basement.”
Simons went to Ithaca College in upstate New York before moving to NYC in 2014. “I lived in and around Brooklyn — Long Island City, Ridgewood, Queens — for 10 years,” before coming to Jersey City in 2024.
On “dillydally,’ an album that feels like eclectic ’90s- era rock, the song “Jersey City” was written before Simons had moved to JC or had any idea she’d up there.
“I was living in New York at the time and I actually wrote it while I was visiting my parents in Massachusetts,” Simons said. “Then coincidentally two years later I met my boyfriend who was moving into Jersey City and then I finally moved in with him last year, so yeah it’s weirdly prophetic in a way. Choosing to write about JC wasn’t even a conscious thing. I was just trying to write a dumb-sounding Steely Dan … or early Hall and Oates … kind of parody and that’s what came out.”
“Jersey City,” in Simons’ song, is a door to a life outside of repression in a place where “I had a lot to learn from my brother Mickey / in the loanshark maelstrom of downtown,” she sings.
“Way down in Jersey City,” goes one part of the chorus, “I found life way less shitty. Had to float into the foreground. That’s my life thanks to Jersey City.
“A lot of the lyrics … it doesn’t make much literal sense if you know Jersey City,” Simons said.
(Editor’s note: Loanshark maelstrom may work on a metaphorical level, but I digress.)
“Jersey City” was part of the near-crest of the wave of Simons’ prolific output at the time, before the self-titled album in 2023 that was her last release as of yet.
“When I was younger, I was very repressed,” Simons said. “I’m from a small farm town called Hadley. Growing up, especially — middle school and early high-school was like mid-2000s — I didn’t know anything about being trans. There wasn’t really like out gay or queer kids at my school. For the most part, I’ve been attracted to men and I was blotting that out of my experience as well. I never dated anybody, I never partied. I just focused on music entirely, so releasing two albums a year — I kind of had this mindset that I just need to constantly be putting things out. Once I came more into myself and exploring myself, I felt like could kind of slow down somewhat.”
But reflecting on her JC track, “It doesn’t even really make sense to say ‘way down in Jersey City’ … the logic in the song is kind of backwards but it felt appropriate,” Simons said.
It’s a song on an album where some of Simons’ other longtime influences like Mr. Bungle, Palace, Ween, Primus, and Frank Zappa may be apparent.
On “Jersey City,” specifically, which works well thematically and also because of a catchy, well-wrought chorus, it can be said Simons takes a page from another influence, Andy Partridge of XTC, someone also very good at left-field songs elevated by catchy choruses.
Real ID and progress
As seen above, the cover of “Jackie Simons” features an image of Simons herself holding an ID.
“I got my Massachusetts real ID which is bring presented on the cover as a nod to my hometown and also felt appropriate as sort of the first album cover where I’m presenting as my authentic self,” Simons said.
And though Simons has had a lot on her plate in general — just last week she was dealing with the nicotine withdrawal from quitting vaping — she’s been itching to put some new music out.
“I’m actually at school trying to get my master’s in social work, so trying to work alongside that … and trying to bring some income in with a part-time job, it’s hard to find time to record,” Simons said. “I also have to set up a new recording set-up. In the interim, I’ve written an album’s worth of songs that are sort of similar to the recent album — kind of pastoral, acoustic things that I’m really happy with. And then I’ve started writing another album of sort of death metal … just like harsh noise kind of ideas. I don’t really know what to do with that. Maybe it ends up being a double album kind of thing, but who knows?”
As for the actual Jersey City, “I’ve really enjoyed living with here with my boyfriend,” Simons said.
When I mentioned offhand that Jersey City had recently been tapped as the best city in the country for sober living, according to a study from a treatment center, Simons, able to compare it to her former scenes in NYC, could see it.
“If you do want to go party, there’s good places to go. But you kind of have to go out of your way, which is really good for me as a person in recovery — whereas where I lived in Ridgewood, there was just like a bar on every corner. Many of which were like my old stomping grounds, so I was just like, ‘I gotta get out of here.’
“My 20s were totally insane,” Simons said. “Drinking heavily, lots of experimentation. It definitely felt appropriate to step away from that in a literal sense. The music circuit was very much wrapped in my drinking or vice versa.”
As mentioned, Simons is now kicking the nicotine that she said people tend to lean on in sobriety.
“The beautiful thing about sobriety is you have to look inward to manage your emotional pain or find ways to cultivate happiness and peace within yourself,” she said. “In my case, I was already interested in spirituality when drinking and that became super upfront for me in sobriety — me asking, ‘What do I need to do in my life in order to feel safe or feel happy?’”
Simons’ music is available on Bandcamp (with all of her work before her self-titled debut being free) in addition to being on most other major streaming platforms. Find her on Instagram @jackiegsimons.
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