Lizzy Grant - Trailer Heaven
“I moved into Manhattan Mobile Home in New Jersey. And I was happy, because I was doing it for myself.” “ I was in that mobile home for two years. I was between there and Williamsburg and I had a boyfriend then. It was a very happy time.”
She lived at Manhattan Mobile Home Park in North Bergen, New Jersey, and commuted on the Hudson-Bergen line for her final year at Fordham. “I liked the time by myself. I liked decorating it with streamers–but only on the inside–fish tanks, little pink speakers with a jack for my iPod Touch. I wasn’t partying, I was really serious at the time, and I liked the diverse environments–going from the Bronx to New Jersey, and then recording with David on Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District. I loved taking cars from one place to another.”
“I did move into a trailer park when I made my first record. I moved into Manhattan Mobile Home in New Jersey.” “I used to take late night walks over the Williamsburg Bridge, go to all the 24 hour diners with $5 and beg the waiters to let me stay all night in exchange for the purchase of one giant slice of chocolate cake. I would sit for hours and read about interesting people like Karl Lagerfeld and listen to books on tape by Tony Robins to keep me company. I would take the D train to Coney Island.”
“There was a white trash element in the way there was a time that I didn’t want to be a part of mainstream society because I thought it was gross. I was trying to carve my own piece of the pie in a creative way that I kind of knew how. And I thought it was cool to be living by myself and working with a famous producer. I was excited about the future at the time.”
“There were a lot of families and residents who had been there for 35 years,” she told Nylon in 2013. “I liked the time by myself. I liked decorating it with streamers—but only on the inside—fish tanks, little pink speakers with a jack for my iPod Touch. I wasn’t partying, I was really serious at the time, and I liked the diverse environments—going from the Bronx to New Jersey, and then recording with David on Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District. I loved taking cars from one place to another.”
“I remember I was working with like, this very famous producer on my first record, but at night at 3 in the morning when it was time to go home, I’d take the light rail to my trailer park in New Jersey, and it felt very much like two worlds colliding. Which gave me a lot of hope, like the future could hold anything, you know? Maybe I could go in this direction, or in that direction.. I could be whatever person I wanted to be.”
“It’s fun in the summer though because everyone has their garden. I had a garden.. it was a fake flower garden [laughs] but I grew blue hydrangeas and ivy. It was fun, we did have good little barbecues and picnics. I had tinsel year round.. I had lots of big vases and fake aquariums, pirate ship clocks, and sandshell pictures. It . It was just fun because I moved in here pretty much when I started recording the record and you know we recorded that record for 3 months straight. We worked like from 3 to 3 everyday and then I’d come home here and I’d like lay in bed all day and listen to The Beach Boys and drink pink lemonade and wait to go to work again and see David Kahne. It was a good time.”
“It’s the closest trailer park to Manhatten.” “Mine [trailer] had shag brown carpet and there was a bed and couch and a kitchen and bathroom and another bedroom and there was a lot of room. Mine was $525 a month. It’s fun because when everyone [children] is out on like their tricycles you feel like you’re a part of a community. It’s pretty quiet here like if I left I would have someone, you know, watch like they would know when you would go and then they would watch your place. I mean there’s nothing to this. The lock doesn’t even work. There’s a chain on the gate and that’s it.”
“Martha is the landlady. I called Martha when I saw the listing and she came and got me and brought me here and I got it that day! She was so nice and then she came back with me and moved all of my stuff out of my boyfriend’s house. Is this a musician boyfriend? What did he introduce you to? How did he influence? Yes, he influenced me in a big way. He was the one who got me closest to my sound before I started working with David Kahne and he recorded my demos with me that I then took to David. He’s very smart. His name is Steven Mertens… He came and saw this place, he liked it.”
When we were coming on the train today we saw that phenomenal view of Manhattan.
“Oh my God, so that was like a big part of the inspiration for a lot of the songs, definitely for Blue Ribbon Sparkler Trailer Heaven just because.. yeah what a way to appreciate the city. I wrote half of my lyrics here and half of them were already done. The more upbeat ones were written here because I was more happy. It’s easier to write when I’m happy.”
Why did you decide to leave for Manhattan?
“After I lived here? Really honestly just because it got too expensive.. even thought it was cheap but I don’t really have another job other than singing at night when I can. It was kind of a phenomenon to even get my own place at all. So then I just moved and now I kind of live with everybody.”
“I didn’t feel trapped in a trailer park. I felt trapped before I got to the trailer park because I had nowhere to live. When I got my trailer, everyone there had the same taste as I did. We all liked giant, lush, fake flower gardens and liked to decorate the walls with streamers even if it wasn’t our birthday. I couldn’t have been happier there. Before that, I did dream of escaping.”
“Oh I don’t even know if I should have said to anyone that I was living in a trailer in New Jersey but stupidly, I did this interview from the trailer, in 2008. It’s cringey, it’s cringey (laughs). I thought I was a rockabilly. I was platinum. I thought I had made it in my own way. I found this trailer in New Jersey, across the Hudson-Begren Light Rail. So I moved there, I finished school and I made that record (LDR AKA Lizzy Grant) which was shelved for 2 and a half years and then came out for like 3 months. But I was proud of myself. I felt like I had arrived, in my own way. I had my own thought and it was kind of kitschy and I knew it was going to sort of influence what I was doing next. It was definitely a phase (laughs).” - Lana in 2017
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