{"id":2079036,"date":"2025-10-09T09:00:29","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T09:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2079036"},"modified":"2025-10-09T09:00:29","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T09:00:29","slug":"wednesdays-karly-hartzman-on-mj-lenderman-breakup-bleeds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wednesdays-karly-hartzman-on-mj-lenderman-breakup-bleeds\/","title":{"rendered":"Wednesday\u2019s Karly Hartzman on MJ Lenderman Breakup, \u2018Bleeds\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n Hartzman and Lenderman at his show in Philadelphia in February 2023.
\n Photo: Adrienne Not Adrian<\/span>\n <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n

A little more than halfway through North Carolina indie rock band <\/em>Wednesday<\/em><\/a>\u2019s new album, <\/em>Bleeds<\/a>, comes \u201c<\/em>The Way Love Goes<\/em><\/a>.\u201d It\u2019s a brief, Merle Haggard-inspired love song written by Wednesday\u2019s singer Karly Hartzman about the band\u2019s guitar player, Jake \u201c<\/em>MJ\u201d Lenderman<\/em><\/a>. Backed by a twinkling, twanging guitar, Hartzman gently exhales a tune that describes, if not praises, the tougher parts of love. The song, she reveals in this personal essay, was written in the waning days of her six-year relationship with Lenderman, and then recorded not long after they broke up. <\/em><\/p>\n

Bands with songs about their members\u2019 tumultuous interpersonal dynamics are not unique \u2014 see the long history of Fleetwood Mac \u2014 but what makes Hartzman\u2019s approach to the\u00a0topic so compelling, in both prose and song, is her vulnerability, her plainspoken lyricism, and keen observation. Throughout this essay, she writes about exhaustion\u2019s toll on romance. Lenderman is given understanding as he\u2019s distant and Hartzman doesn\u2019t strive to make herself look anything more than human as she describes being drunk, being sad, and being distant. While Hartzman and Lenderman remain split, the band is together and thriving; Wednesday are on tour (sans Lenderman) well into the New Year.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cSo we choose the person who we want to go through life with, propping each other up like exhausted dancers in a marathon.\u201d<\/em>
\u00a0\u2014Kristin Hersh (from Don\u2019t Suck, Don\u2019t Die: Giving Up Vic Chesnutt<\/em>)<\/p>\n

If you cry into a microphone, the sound is shoved back into you in high definition through the headphones. It\u2019s harsher than any guitar feedback that can be tortured from an amplifier.<\/p>\n

North Carolina is warming back up after the winter, in April 2024. I am sitting in a folding chair, facing a blank wall at the studio in Asheville. Like many other professional studios, it\u2019s a highly curated space. Yellow hand towels in the bathroom that match the pillows on the couch in the control room. The lightbulbs can be individually controlled by an app. I set them to white, yellow, and orange. If I wanted, I could dial them to blues and purples and make it feel like I was a mermaid singing underwater to the lobsters. Instead I keep them dialed to what I\u2019d see if I were clocking in to a nine-to-five office job. I might be able to find this funny eventually, but at this moment I can\u2019t find anything romantic about singing a love song I wrote for our guitarist Jake many months earlier. We dated for six years; we were best friends; we watched each other grow up. We had broken up a month ago. I\u2019m poking roadkill with a stick. Making it twitch.<\/p>\n

\u201cKnockin\u2019 on that screen door<\/em>
Even though I can see right through<\/em>
Feels like I\u2019m almost good enough<\/em>
To know you\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Jake is downstairs with the boys playing Tetris<\/em>, maybe. It\u2019s just me and Alex Farrar, our producer, who was on the other side of the glass pressing record. My brain has felt fuzzy with mold for most of the week while recording these songs, but I feel like they\u2019re the best I\u2019ve ever written. I just need to put my head down, ignore the context, and get them tracked. I care about my songs more than I care about myself. Sometimes people call me \u201cWednesday\u201d instead of my name. My music has become most of everything about me. I don\u2019t particularly mind.<\/p>\n

\u201cOversold myself<\/em>
On the night we met<\/em>
I\u2019m not as entertaining\u00a0<\/em>
as you might\u2019ve thought I was then\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The song I\u2019m siphoning out of myself is about frantically trying to glue together a sugar cube that\u2019s on the verge of dissolving. It\u2019s about salvaging love from exhaustion, and relearning how to make a relationship work with someone despite having seen the worst of them, and them having seen your worst parts too.<\/p>\n

I clocked in today thinking I could get this vocal down methodically, but the tears snuck up on me. It\u2019s weird to cry when you feel so numb. I creep myself out sometimes when I ignore my pain to get something done. I distract myself and go forward without processing a feeling until it bleeds through later in life. I\u2019m 27 now, and with every year that passes I am able to zoom further out above myself to analyze my own life. I\u2019m able to see my patterns more clearly.<\/p>\n

I just need to get this album done by acting as if the band dynamic is the same as when I wrote the songs, but I keep crying through the vocal takes. Neither Alex nor the rest of the band know that Jake and I aren\u2019t dating anymore. At this point, we still live together with our cat at our house in Haw Creek in Asheville. You have to walk through every room in the house to get to our bedroom. We still can\u2019t get the mold out of the shower; there\u2019s no fan in the bathroom. There\u2019s no hood to suck up the smoke over the stove when I\u2019m frying bacon. The house feels like it was made to hold stagnant air. It holds on to six years of our life. It\u2019s my favorite place on earth.<\/p>\n

Jake and I had spent the past two weeks trying to figure out if we could still work together in the band in spite of no longer being romantic partners. We had a lot of commitments as bandmates to get through before we could have time apart to do any emotional reconnaissance. There was a list in my notebook of the professional obligations we had yet to fulfill: Record the album; two week European tour; Hopscotch Festival in Raleigh; and one more show in Tokyo. Our last time playing together with Jake would be in the country where the two of us called it quits. My intentions for these final shows were clear to me: Don\u2019t let a breakup fuck with the integrity of the music.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I\u2019m scared to death<\/em>
there\u2019s women less<\/em>
spoiled by your knowing<\/em>
newer and much sweeter<\/em>
many much more patient<\/em>
with much more than I can give\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is such a sad song,\u201d I say to Alex in the control room through the microphone. \u201cYeah \u2026 let me know if you need a second,\u201d I hear his voice say through the headphones.<\/p>\n

My third take of the song is uninterrupted by tears. I don\u2019t like to do many vocal takes, because the feeling dissipates the more I repeat the words, as my brain puts up a membrane to protect itself. I want the rawest version of the words I can capture, without my crying interrupting what I have to say. The third attempt was the final vocal take.<\/p>\n

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\n Hartzman recording Bleeds<\/em>.
\n Photo: Charlie Boss<\/span>\n <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Over a year before recording, I\u2019d heard Merle Haggard\u2019s \u201cThat\u2019s the Way Love Goes<\/a>\u201d on the outlaw country station that we kept Jake\u2019s minivan\u2019s radio dialed to. I was deeply affected by the melody and the immediacy of his voice. The lyrics and instrumentation were cheesy but in a perfect way that evoked the feeling I got when walking through the aisles of a grocery store late at night. Only Merle Haggard could serve three years in San Quentin and also get away with singing: \u201cYet you ran with me \/ Chasing my rainbows \/ Honey, I love you too \/ That\u2019s the way love goes.\u201d<\/p>\n

I listened to it constantly: while I made our bed, while I grilled salmon on the stove, while I washed the dishes, while I took the trash cans a quarter mile down our driveway in the early hours of the morning.<\/p>\n

Soon after I heard the song, it was New Year\u2019s Eve going into 2023. I got real dressed up for a party our neighbors were throwing. I put on elbow-length pink gloves, a sparkly white dress with ribbon lacing on the front with a clingy pink Speedo long-sleeved shirt underneath, black-and-white striped stockings, and a \u201cbelt\u201d that was actually just a heavy-duty chain that I locked around my waist with a padlock.<\/p>\n

New Year\u2019s Eve is always a sensitive time for me. It is the anniversary of the last night I spent in person with my best friend in high school before he died. I usually dress up outlandishly to thwart the difficult memories that come up and get pretty drunk if I have the means. But being wasted always made it impossible to get through the night without getting emotional.<\/p>\n

I filled my Marvin the Martian cup with tequila on our neighbors\u2019 porch next door. While swaying on the wooden porch swing, I ate collard greens with pork-jowl bits that my bandmate Xandy brought to the party. I nursed several pieces of homemade cornbread. I floated giddy and drunk with our friends around the charcoal grill and on lawn chairs around the fire. I was thankful that we were always having groups of our sweet friends over at the house. In my drunkenness I could let my own life feel like the center of the universe, as it did when I was a kid. For a brief moment, the boundaries of the earth ended at the furthest reach of my vision: at the houses where my friends and I lived; the creek that turned the field into a big puddle when it rained; the neighbor who was always screaming at her boyfriend and seemed to have been pregnant for years; the acres of land around us where we often stumbled upon black bears digging through the trash, turkey vultures picking at racoon corpses, coyotes screaming in the night.<\/p>\n

Moments before midnight, I hit the edge of my drunken giddiness and fell off. I was officially too uninhibited to reinforce the walls that usually kept my sadnesses and memories of my best friend\u2019s face, voice, or his funeral from leaking through. I told Jake I needed to leave immediately and ran back next door to our house and into our bedroom. I felt like I was being impaled by all of the things I had been able to experience because I lived past 17. I thought about what my friend would be doing if he survived: curing cancer; becoming president; playing piano at the airport; eating an egg bagel with scallion cream cheese; throwing a rock at a metal trash can; looking at Fourth of July fireworks at the baseball stadium from a parking lot; watching me grow up, telling me I turned out okay.<\/p>\n

I felt like an idiot still feeling so intensely about some shit from high school that I\u2019d never put in the work to make peace with. I was angry at my inability to be a fun drunk. I was spiteful that New Year\u2019s Eve always puts me in this position. Jake came inside and helped me get out of my padlock belt and my scratchy dress. I stood limp, embarrassed, and naked in our bedroom. He unzipped his canvas jacket, and I wrapped my arms around him underneath it. He put his arms around me and swayed me back and forth. I started singing Merle\u2019s \u201cThat\u2019s the Way Love Goes\u201d softly into his shirt, which was becoming stained with my tears and snot. The song was always in my head and became a sweetness I could always go to for comfort.
He put me in my pajamas and tucked me into our bed. Our cat, Girl Girl, jumped up onto my lap, always quietly showing up when we needed her. He arranged my oily bangs on my forehead into a neat line and kissed me good night. Then he got up and left the room to go back to the party. I turned on the lamp on the bedside table so he wouldn\u2019t hurt himself bumping around our bedroom when he came back in later.<\/p>\n

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\n Wednesday performing on The Late Show with Colbert<\/em> in May.
\n Photo: Scott Kowalchyk\/CBS<\/span>\n <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In 2023, we constantly toured our album, Rat Saw God<\/em>, released that April. The songs I sang onstage about our home became about a place I couldn\u2019t afford to visit for more than two weeks at a time. There were multiple full U.S. tours, multiple trips to Europe, constant one-off trips to different cities to play festivals. We toured with Jake\u2019s band, MJ Lenderman, in between Wednesday tours.<\/p>\n

He was away even more than I was. I often took time off during his tours to be at the house, get some rest, and spend time with our cat who was at his parents\u2019 place more than ours at that point. When he wasn\u2019t touring, Jake would often go off and record on other people\u2019s albums or record his own music.<\/p>\n

We worked all the time. Even when I was home, I had gotten so used to the constant grind that it felt weird to relax. When I wasn\u2019t on the road, I still felt the constant call in my heart to make things, and it drove me crazy when I didn\u2019t follow the urge. I spent hours most days sewing handmade Wednesday merch. I loved sewing, and I loved that it could be emotionless if I needed it to be, unlike songwriting. I could express myself without having to bleed.<\/p>\n

In the rare times when we were both home, often all Jake had the energy to do was noodle on his guitar and watch TV or YouTube videos. He tried to get me to come to our bedroom and lay around with him, veg out, and unwind, but I couldn\u2019t relax. I was afraid if I stopped the momentum of my constant busywork it would be impossible to start it back up again. I was so exhausted that I was working endlessly to avoid some theoretical exhaustion. There\u2019s a Bukowski poem that goes: \u201cTake a writer away from his typewriter \/ and all you have left \/ is \/ the sickness \/ which started him \/ typing \/ in the \/ Beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n

I was also so desperate for time alone after being stuck around five or more people constantly for years. I could tell that the amount of solitude I required was driving Jake crazy. When I would finally come to bed he would often get up and sit at his desk and watch movies or record songs on his computer. We operated on opposite schedules. We lived together in a three-room house but hardly saw each other. When we were able to get a rare moment of stillness together, one of us would say \u201cface time,\u201d which meant that we were to do ten seconds or so of looking directly at each other in silence. It felt odd but necessary, having to prompt ourselves to remember each other\u2019s existence in our own home.<\/p>\n

I wanted to write a love song for Jake with the same melody as Merle Haggard\u2019s \u201cThat\u2019s the Way Love Goes\u201d to admit and apologize for how much I had been isolating myself. I was avoiding a lot of sadness and exhaustion and was avoiding him because I didn\u2019t have the energy to alleviate his sadness and exhaustion. I wanted to write a song that would prove to him that I was aware of this and promise that, eventually, I could be better.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have seen me angry<\/em>
I know it\u2019s not been easy<\/em>
And I know it can\u2019t always be<\/em>
And that\u2019s the way love goes\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

As the touring continued, we experienced more months of misunderstanding each other. We were reaching incredible highs in our careers but also had let each other down so many times at crucial moments when we really needed the other to be there. When I would panic trying to parallel park the van when we were on tour together, the only thing that would calm me down was opening the car door and walking any direction until the stupid thing was out of sight. When he needed an ear after a rough travel day, desperately needed someone to understand him, I was unable to provide anywhere for him to put the words. I told him I had noticed some of the glow behind his eyes disappear since the touring made it normal to drink or consume whatever substance was around every night. He didn\u2019t see what I was talking about. I was a workaholic and unavailable. He stretched himself thin, unable to turn down creative opportunities that took more and more of his leisure time away from him. It had become impossible to retain the vision we initially had of the future of our lives together.<\/p>\n

My body whittled itself into intimacy repellent, only able to function when distracting itself: working on my creative projects, touring, and taking long midday naps. I rarely was able to be around our friends, because I knew I would be too wrung out to perform some version of myself or of Jake and I as our friends understood us to be.<\/p>\n

I loved him so much, but I knew I couldn\u2019t give him what he needed from me. He also couldn\u2019t provide assurance about crucial things I was planning my life around. I saw myself getting married and having kids, and he was not visibly excited by the prospect. He wouldn\u2019t have been able to figure out what he could do to get me out of the coffin I buried myself alive in. We didn\u2019t really argue at the end. It mostly just felt like we were clawing at the wood under six feet of dirt, slowly running out of oxygen.<\/p>\n

Jake and I agreed to break up in March of 2024. We were sitting in a suffocating, smoke-filled listening bar in Kyoto. We were at the midpoint of a ten-day vacation in Japan that followed a three-week tour with Wednesday in New Zealand and Australia.<\/p>\n

We were sitting together in a place that couldn\u2019t be more different from our home in Haw Creek. I was just drunk enough to admit to him that I had been thinking we weren\u2019t meant to be together. He agreed with me. We left the bar completely unsure of what we were to each other, and it was snowing. A month later, we recorded the love song I wrote for him.<\/p>\n