Video Premiere: Normandie Wilson – “Dressed in Pink”

Normandie Wilson is back, and she means business.

The San Diego songstress is dropping her latest album, Normandie Wilson is Tired of Being Nice, today. And as the title implies, Wilson is here to tell it like it is. Songs like “We Had a Little Affair” and “Sweetheart” grab you by the throat with their unvarnished truths about love and sex, and that matter-of-factness gives Wilson’s usual mild-mannered cabaret an immensely satisfying shot in the arm.

Wilson is accompanying the release of her new album with a music video for the song “Dressed in Pink,” which you can watch above. The video’s bubblegum palette offsets the world-weary lyrics, which were inspired by a chance encounter with a stranger one drunken night in Paris.

“She walks towards me in a colorless concrete bar, dressed in pink. Head ­to­ toe pink. Pink hat, pink scarf, pink coat, pink purse,” Wilson told us. “I believe at the moment I’m wearing pink lipstick as well, and we begin talking about… the color pink.

“She’s, of course, effortlessly French, utterly Parisian, and her lips quiver in the way that only native French speakers manipulate their mouths, kissing the words out of her pink ­lipstick-covered lips.”

If you can almost hear the French accordion music in the background, you’re not the only one. Wilson and the stranger became quick confidants.

“I’ve never spoken to this woman in my life, and within minutes, she’s telling me about her lover, a married man,” said Wilson. “She speaks of him in an indifferent fashion, but her pout gives her feelings away. ‘I know he’ll never leave his wife…’ Her words trail off into my drunkenness. I look at this beautiful woman, dressed in pink, and can’t understand how anyone wouldn’t take her into their arms and love her relentlessly.”

The meeting inspired Wilson to stumble home and write “Dressed in Pink” on her MIDI keyboard, her thoughts drifting “to all the people in my life who never loved me, and all the time I wasted on them…”

You can sample the sweet ennui by watching the video for “Dressed in Pink,” or buy a name-your-price copy of the song here. The whole Normandie Wilson is Tired of Being Nice album is now available on her Bandcamp.

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