In 2012, King released her debut EP "The Elle King EP" on RCA; one track from that EP, "Playing for Keeps", is the theme song for VH1's Mob Wives Chicago series.
She released her debut album "Love Stuff" in 2015. It produced the US top ten single "Ex's & Oh's", which earned her two Grammy Award nominations. King has also toured with acts such as Of Monsters and Men, Train, James Bay, The Chicks, Heart, Joan Jett, Michael Kiwanuka, and Miranda Lambert. She is the daughter of actor and comedian Rob Schneider and former model London King. King uses her mother's surname to distinguish her career and identity from her father's. "People know who my dad is," she told ABC News, "but I think that my voice and my music speaks for itself: that I am my own person."
King is a four-time Grammy Award nominee, two each in the rock and country categories, and received honors from the Country Music Association Awards and the Academy of Country Music Awards.
King was born on July 3, 1989 in Los Angeles, California, to then-Saturday Night Live cast member Rob Schneider and London King, a former model. Her parents divorced and her mother remarried. She grew up living in Ohio, between Wellston and Columbus. When she was nine, her stepfather, Justin Tesa, gave her a record by all-female hard-rock band the Donnas; she views this as the pivotal moment when she decided she wanted to be a musician. Around this time, she also started listening to the Runaways and Blondie, and she made her acting debut alongside her father in the movie Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo.
At the age of 13, King started playing guitar, immersing herself in the music of Otis Redding, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Etta James, Aretha Franklin, Al Green, Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, AC/DC (she has the phrase "dirty deeds" tattooed on her biceps), and Earl Scruggs. Her interest in the country and bluegrass of Hank Williams and Earl Scruggs inspired her to learn the banjo. During her teenage years, she attended Buck's Rock camp in Connecticut, where she starred successfully in a number of musicals.
King spent her teenage years in New York City, but she has also lived in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Copenhagen, Denmark. Upon graduating from Elisabeth Irwin High School/Little Red School House, she moved to Philadelphia to enroll at University of the Arts, studying painting and film. During these college years, she had an artistic epiphany seeing a live show where the band onstage used a banjo purely for accompaniment purposes, eschewing the bluegrass and country musical vocabulary traditionally associated with the instrument. King then began to use the banjo as a compositional tool. After college, she briefly lived in Copenhagen and Los Angeles, before moving back to New York where she currently resides in Bushwick, Brooklyn.
In September 2014, King released "Ex's & Oh's", which serves as the lead single off her debut album. She released the album, Love Stuff on February 17, 2015. She performed "Ex's & Oh's" the next day on The Today Show to promote it. The song reached number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming King's first top ten single in the United States. "Ex's & Oh's" received two nominations at the 58th Grammy Awards: Best Rock Performance and Best Rock Song. In July 2015, King supported Modest Mouse on their UK tour. "Under the Influence" and "America's Sweetheart" were later released as singles for rock radio and mainstream radio, respectively. In 2016, her single "Good Girls" featured on the Ghostbusters soundtrack and played over the movie's credits. In 2016, she teamed up with country singer Dierks Bentley for the song "Different for Girls". They performed this song at the 50th CMA Awards on November 2, 2016, when she and Bentley won the award for Musical Event of the Year.
On March 6, 2017, she premiered a new single "Wild Love" featuring a sparse electronic production, marking a slight departure from her previous style in music.
King released her second studio album "Shake the Spiri", on October 19, 2018, which she made with her band the Brethren. On August 3, 2019, she was featured singing on a version of Lindsey Stirling's "The Upside". Throughout 2019, King served as a guest co-host on the MTV series Catfish: The TV Show opposite lead host Nev Schulman.
In 2021, it was revealed she was pregnant with her first child with tattoo artist Dan Tooker. On September 1, 2021, she welcomed a baby boy. King has several tattoos, and worked at a tattoo company called East Side Ink.
Song of Sorrow
Elle King Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Even though it was too soon
And all the king's men say there's no tomorrow so
I follow the sorrow song of the moon
Scriptures singin' man I can't seem to find my way back home
It's been a hundred years I've no idea which direction to go
This is my song of sorrow
This is my song of sorrow
Weak and wide eyed my pride is swallowed
I'm beggin' for my hearts last beat
And I'm repaying all the time I've borrowed
So forever the sorrow song I sing
Scriptures singin' man I can't seem to find my way back home
It's been a hundred years I've no idea which direction to go
This is my song of sorrow
This is my song of sorrow
Ooh, song of sorrow
Ooh, song of sorrow
Ooh, song of sorrow
Ooh
Scriptures singin' man I can't seem to find my way back home
It's been a hundred years I've no idea which direction to go
Scriptures singin' man I can't seem to find my way back home
It's been a hundred years I've no idea which direction to go
This is my song of sorrow
This is my song of sorrow
Ooh, ooh
Ooh
This is my song of sorrow
The lyrics of Elle King's "Song of Sorrow" express the depths of despair and feeling lost. The opening lines mention passing by a "man's hollow," which could be interpreted as a reference to a grave or a place of great loss. The singer is feeling overwhelmed and feels like there is no path forward, as "all the king's men say there's no tomorrow." Despite this, the singer finds solace in the "sorrow song of the moon," perhaps indicating a connection to nature in times of crisis.
The second verse delves deeper into the singer's feelings of being lost and directionless. The singer mentions being unable to find their way back home, even after a hundred years. The repetition of the phrase "this is my song of sorrow" emphasizes the singer's intense emotions and gives a sense of the weight of the emotions they are carrying. The final lines of the song reflect a sense of acceptance of the singer's situation, with the acknowledgment that they will continue to sing this "sorrow song" forever.
In summary, "Song of Sorrow" is a poignant expression of grief and feeling lost, with imagery of graves, borrowed time, and a reliance on nature for comfort.
Line by Line Meaning
Made my way to past a man's hollow
I travelled through a barren, empty place.
Even though it was too soon
Even though it may have been premature.
And all the king's men say there's no tomorrow so
People around me say there's no hope for the future.
I follow the sorrow song of the moon
I am drawn to the melancholic music of the night sky.
Weak and wide eyed my pride is swallowed
I am vulnerable and ashamed, unable to stand tall.
I'm beggin' for my hearts last beat
I am pleading for my final moments to come.
And I'm repaying all the time I've borrowed
I am trying to make amends for the time I have wasted.
So forever the sorrow song I sing
I will continue to express my pain through my music.
Scriptures singin' man I can't seem to find my way back home
I am lost and have no idea how to return to where I belong.
It's been a hundred years I've no idea which direction to go
I have been wandering aimlessly for a long time with no clear path forward.
This is my song of sorrow
This is the expression of my pain through music.
Ooh, song of sorrow
The repeating refrain of my melancholic music.
Ooh
A vocalization expressing my emotional pain.
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Written by: TANNER SCHNEIDER
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@IsAbElmiaumiau
Whoever posts this hopefully tells Elle how much her fans love her and her music. ☺️
@Forgiven313
I hope so too, one of the best and realest albums I've ever heard. Funny enough, Xs and Os, catchy as it was, is probably my least favorite of her songs. But hopefully it made her a ton of cash because she deserves it for these masterpieces 😂
@tinacarter1149
Absolutely. I love her.
@andres5058
Can't believe that this masterpiece has only 22 comments! This song is really beautiful, the best underrated artist of all time for sure!
@austinmiller3497
I get chills and I cry and have tears rolling down my face every time I listen to this song 😢😭😭😭 Elle King has such an amazing beautiful voice it is on my bucket list to meet her someday I hope to get her autograph and take a picture with her someday maybe sing on stage with her hopefully soon she'll be able to do a tour in Columbus Ohio so me and my mom can go see her
@pumpkinqueen1013
I love her voice so much!❤️😍
@roytrenneman2200
She has such a good voice!
@juhsuhcahfritz5276
I want to learn how to get that raspinness sound she has!!
@dr.dspoptartpool6167
Been playing this everyday soul searching wif my acoustic out by lakes and trees. Cheers to you, Elle, your obvi an old soul too. God bless you and everyone who feels this.. 🤳🙏💙
@amandapepion5248
She's preaching my truth