In the early 1980s, Prince wrote “Manic Monday,” and gave the single to The Bangles who recorded what became a theme song for reluctant employees. Over 30 years later, Ojai-based singer-songwriter Elisabeth Maurus, known as Lissie, has recorded her own contribution to the work-song genre. Her anthem, “I Don’t Want to Go to Work,” is the sixth track on her sophomore album, Back to Forever, out now on Columbia’s Fat Possum Records. Maurus wrote the album’s songs over the past year, but she penned this one over five years ago. “It sounded like a country song when I wrote it, so I put it on the back burner. But then I revisited it, and it’s so universal,” she says of lyrics based around the refrain, “I don’t want to go to work, you don’t pay me what I’m worth.”

This is the first album that the 30-year-old, who grew up in Rock Island, Illinois, has recorded with her touring band of Eric Sullivan on lead guitar, bassist Lewis Keller, and drummer Jessie Siedenberg. “For my first album, I didn’t know my band yet,” she says. “So it was really important for me that they play for this second one. They are such a huge part of how my sound has developed.” The four musicians recorded Back to Forever in Topanga and downtown L.A.; sessions that were close to home for Sullivan and Siedenberg who also live in Ojai, and Keller who resides in L.A.

The Midwestern singer says she came to L.A. with her guitar in her early 20s, and played gigs “anywhere I could get in” before she found a manager who led her to London where she was signed. Once she started touring, Maurus realized she didn’t need an urban address between shows. “I really like nature, quiet, open spaces, and seeing the stars at night. I heard Ojai was nice and I was just in such a rush to make a change that I put down a deposit before I had ever been there. I just looked on Craigslist, found a place, and moved there,” Maurus says. The relocation was impulsive, but four years later, she still loves her chosen hometown. “By the time I’m off the road, I’m happy to chill on the porch and drink wine or sip tequila,” says the admitted agave snob who is at work with Todd Hallberg of Métl tequila to create a special edition mezcal.

Maurus prefers to sip green tea or coffee when she writes. Though she was heartbroken when she penned the first album, she’s acquired more perspective since then. The new record is about both sides of romantic conflicts. In “Further Away,” her plaintive refrain, “Does anyone love anyone anymore,” is a philosophical question about modern relationships. The simple, stripped down tune, “They All Want You” is about being with someone who Maurus says is “giving energy out to everyone else all the time and you feel like you’re last in line.”

The conflict between having ambitions yet maintaining artist integrity takes shape in “Shameless,” the album’s raw indictment of pop culture. “I was having a day where I looked around me and saw people acting like desperate idiots that were doing so well,” Maurus says. “I couldn’t do that if I tried. Part of it is my insecurities. Another part is a really valid social commentary.” The refrain is simple: “I don’t want to be famous if I got to be shameless.” She finishes the song with, “If you don’t know what my name is, so what.” That’s a refreshing sentiment worth repeating, especially if you’re singing it on the way to work.

By Elizabeth Varnell

Pictured: Ojai-based singer-songwriter Elisabeth Maurus, known as Lissie.
Photo courtesy of Fat Possum Records

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