Last year, the great singer-songwriter Madi Diaz released her Fatal Optimist album. Later this summer, she'll expand on that record with the confusingly titled deluxe edition Fatal Optimist (UN-unplugged). The new version includes four new songs, including collaborations with Lucy Dacus and August Ponthier. Here's what Diaz says about it:
These songs have two sides now. One being the insular raw, knee jerk world of Fatal Optimist. In UN-unplugged land, I sat with some of my favorite players to date, and we fumbled through these songs together. Not so solitary, more like lonely together — letting a world build, and doing it in full color. Often times when I write a song, I’m still processing whatever it is I’m going through. With Fatal Optimist, my intent was to stay in those early stages of writing and capture that intense, insulated energy of active processing. With the UN-unplugged versions, I feel a bit braver, now standing on two feet, ready to say it all quite a bit louder.
The lead single from the album's UN-unplugged version is a song you might've already heard in a different form. Diaz co-wrote "This Is How A Woman Leaves" with Sarah Buxton and the country star Maren Morris. Morris included the track on her 2024 album Intermission, and Diaz sang backup on that version. Now, Diaz has recorded her own take on the track, a breakup song with a titanic chorus. I like hers better. Here's what Diaz says about it:
I was vacuuming my ex’s house after I had finally gotten the last of my boxes out... because I thought it would be nice to come home to an empty house if it was clean? My friend called to check in and make sure I wasn’t lingering in a house she knew meant so much to me, even still. I confessed to the vacuuming, feeling totally out of my mind. And she told me it was OK that I was vacuuming my ex’s house. Sitting there. Feeling all of it. Angry and doing the dishes in a final screw you? Hurt and folding his laundry? Taking the coffee maker (after first contemplating stealing the dog)? Leaving some things worse, but most things better than I found them? "That’s how a woman leaves" was what she said. And I went home and it echoed in my mind for months, until this song finally poured out of me one day with Sarah Buxton and Maren Morris. I will always remember sitting in my living room finishing this song and hearing Maren sing it for the first time.
Below, check out the Madi Diaz and Maren Morris versions of "This Is How A Woman Leaves," as well as the tracklist for Fatal Optimist (UN-unplugged).
TRACKLIST:
01 "Hope Less"
02 "Ambivalence"
03 "Feel Something"
04 "Good Liar"
05 "Lone Wolf"
06 "Heavy Metal"
07 "If Time Does What It’s Supposed To"
08 "Flirting"
09 "Why'd You Have To Bring Me Flowers"
10 "Time Difference"
11 "Fatal Optimist"
12 "This is How A Woman Leaves (UN-unplugged)"
13 "Hope Less (UN-unplugged)"
14 "Why’d You Have To Bring Me Flowers (UN-unplugged)" (feat. August Ponthier)
15 "Heavy Metal (UN-unplugged)" (feat. Lucy Dacus)
TOUR DATES:
7/21 - Manchester, VT @ Billsville House Concerts
7/23 - Portland, ME @ One Longfellow Square
7/25 - Newport, RI @ Newport Folk Festival
8/19 - Portsmouth, NH @ Prescott Park Arts Festival
Fatal Optimist (UN-unplugged) is out 9/4 on Anti-.
