Vanity Project (Side 1) by Cyrena Wages

Welcome to this deep dive into the first half of Cyrena's debut solo album, Vanity Project. Music for the river faeries. Side two is on the way soon!

Circumstances have thrown me the bone I needed to re-open Vanity Project and turn the knob up to 11. It is more satisfying to do that on a record player, but at least I have a CD player which still has a physical knob on it. Funny, but this player is bright pink. It’s not mine.

Vanity Project by Cyrena Wages

Are We Allowed to Fall in Love?

This was the first Cyrena song to hook me back in the dark winter. I covered this song at length back on April 19 when I didn’t know Cyrena at all. It’s interesting to see my initial take on this album. I still think this guy was wrong, always will.

A word about a word. I was seeking something new to say about this song and I found it on the train. Arrove. Arrived is the past tense of arrive. But arrove works better in this song. It really does. One of the things I love about this music is the small clues to a different way of life. Sometimes Memphis sounds like Mamphis. “My” sounds like mah. It’s this accumulation of molecular details which combine into a powerful impact. These people seem like us yet Tennessee and its ways are different. Parts of the state are desert. It’s warm. They have pools there. They have an amazing river, one of the most famous in the world. Mark Twain wrote about that river. Think about that. Elvis grew up here. Of which more later.

Robin Hood

Robin Hood has taken on new meaning since I first heard this track. Cyrena’s grandfather used to kick around with the DJ who first played Elvis on the radio in Memphis. The DJ was called Dewey Phillips and the grandfather was Woodrow Wages. Woodrow bought a car called Robin Hood, license plate ROBN HD. This car now belongs to Cyrena’s father, hometown judge Wilson Wages who spent a lifetime defending the underdog, but it is clear she has designs on it too.

@cyrenawages

A post shared by Cyrena Wages on Instagram: "I never got to meet my grandfather, a colorful, larger than life character, Woodrow Wages. Robin Hood was his car - a gold 1967 Cadillac Sedan Deville. He bought it on Dec. 16, 1968 and died shortly after in a plane crash March of ’69, returning to Millington, TN. My dad, Wilson, was 14 at the time. My grandpa used to run around with Dewey Phillips of WHBQ “Red Hot & Blue”…one of the first radio DJs to play white and black artists in the same hour, playing country and rhythm and blues, the first to ever play Elvis on air, etc. My dad attributes the genesis of his love affair with music to being a little kid, watching Dewey do his thing, totally mesmerized. Robin Hood is my dad’s car now and I wrote this song solely so he’d feel obligated to leave it to me in his will instead of my brothers. Jk. Sort of. Dad is a trial attorney and was the judge of our hometown for many years. He’s always fought for the little guy- the underdog- professionally and personally. We’d drive through the country on the way to school in the Caddy, in good times and bad, listening to Stevie Wonder and Ann Peebles. He’s say things to me like “babygirl, don’t take any wooden nickels,” “no man can avoid being born average, but no man has to be common either” (Satchel Paige), and “kick the door down and tell ‘em Dewey sent ya” (Dewey Phillips). Dad is alot of things- wild, eccentric. But mostly, authentic, and high in integrity. It’s hard to be human out here in the world. Humans are so complicated and we’re all just projecting and doing our best but most of the time not nailing it, lol. But when things get complicated, I remember the wisdom of my roots and how that’s something no one can take from me. And at the fork in the road of who you want to become and who you do not - I think about ROBNHD."

There’s God in this one. It’s the car used to take CW to school. We hear of glass ceilings. There’s a band. It’s jazzy. It’s very good. It might be as close as this album gets to a feel good bopper. The darkness is present in the reference to the drug-addled Miss Tennessee and her amphetamines. The beauty pageant misery lurks behind every streetlight.

I love this performance of Robin Hood because the BTS shows how relaxed Cyrena is before taking to the stage in her hometown. Overton Park Shell is one of the main outdoor venues in Memphis. Elvis himself played his first concert there in 1954.

Carried Away

This song has such a lilt and a swing to it, it is easily one of my favourites of all the CW back catalogue. This more recent footage shows Cyrena relaxed in the studio in Manhattan.

The video below is my favourite from the album. Partly because of the wonderful little stovetop mocha coffee thing. Partly because it features both Grace Hargroder and Sophie Baldwin, but mainly because it’s just fucking hilarious. And even Grizzly June (the dog) has a non-speaking part. Is that... is she having her claws painted? Oh Jesus now they’re cooking... records?

My heart is stained glass
I make love in every color
I’m free and emotional
I got class, and a mind of gold
And I
Get Carried Away

There’s something for everyone with Carried Away. I even love this dancey remix which lets CW’s humour shine.

Vanity Project

This is the song that gives the album its title. CW tells the story of how some, let us say “men”, reacted negatively to her plan to write, record and distribute her own album without a record company. To remind ourselves that Cyrena put together this entire album plus videos, merch and all the other things by herself is beyond impressive. Of course she had help along the way, but I have since learned she is the consummate networker and team player. Whoever helped her did so because she is so nice. People just want to help out. Even legends like Matt Ross-Spang are not immune to Cyrena’s persuasive artistry.

For British readers, Matt has won Grammy Awards and was even asked to work on some previously unreleased Elvis tracks. He speaks highly of CW in the short documentary below. I remember April 29 like it was yesterday. That was the day CW slipped into my own DMs with a very gracious favour to ask. The answer is always yes, CW. Isn’t it, Matt? Joe Restivo?

Anyway, to get into the song: it is laced with pain and regret. It’s partly about those appalling teenaged beauty pageants and the sleazy men they attracted. But I am sure it is about something more broad than that. It also gives some clues about why Cyrena moved back to Memphis after Nashville.

Record man had platinum plaques breathing down my neck
When he said I’d sound better in a shorter dress
Write some hits girl, trim the fat
I guess I’m silk flowers
On your vanity
Is it my porcelain skin
Or my sanity?

It’s too sad in places because she still has the scars, two decades later. These sleazebags at least gave her a killer album title and an angry song to boot.

Call Me

This is a distinctly melancholy track. It ends side one for those with the vinyl edition. There is a lot of pain and sadness on this album, but in other songs it is accompanied by anger. She’s coping with open wounds. This time it sounds like the end of a relationship she can’t quite kill off. She’s not crazy of course, but perhaps she feels a little mad. Why can’t she just shut him out?

Call me on your way back home
Cause I don’t want to be alone
And I know someone’s waiting for you
We didn’t mean a word we said
No it ain’t over yet

I think this is the saddest song on the album, or at least on this first half. It is one of the few on Vanity Project where she isn’t screaming angry. I think that is why the impact is greater. “I’m not angry, I’m disappointed,” are words no school pupil wants to hear. It’s heart-breaking. It’s haunting.

We can’t be sure that this really happened or that it was a single event, a single person, the same relationship. That’s the beauty of the persona, the roleplay in song writing. But considering the autobiographical nature of this album leads me to think it really happened.

The Making of Vanity Project

Below you can learn more about the making of Vanity Project in Cyrena’s own words. She’s a deep thinker and very serious about her music, but she always shows up with a smile and a wink.

One of the most striking features of Vanity Project is its categorisation, or the lack of it. Everyone speaks of it, especially those involved in giving birth to it. It’s not Country music. It’s Americana, but that’s not saying anything. It’s soul. It’s jazz. It’s sad and dark and light and airy. Eventually they came up with this category: music for the river faeries. If you know, you know. It either speaks to you or it doesn’t. Like Marmite. Fuck I love Marmite.

Cyrena’s new tunes for 2025 have a dose of comedy and are less intense than her debut solo album. You can stream If It Ain’t Broke and Find Out on all the usual.