How did I get started? Well, my mom tells this story (so it must be true). When my older brother, Ben, was born, my mother's obstetrician told her to put him in front of the hi-fi and listen to classical music. My brother became a classical musician, as did the obstetrician's son. I then asked my mother what she made me listen to. She was a bit busier when I was born, so she strapped me into my car seat as we drove around San Francisco and listened to music on the radio.  She said, "Something about a stairway to heaven."

her favorties:
color -  pink
animal - cat
food - stove popcorn, fluffy chocolate cake
song of her own - jake, falling in love

why does she wear glasses?
lisa is very near-sighted and she is allergic to contact lenses.

 I went to sleep-away summer camp for six years. It was there that did my first performance with and acoustic guitar.  Aima Doll McCutchin and I did our rendition of "Stairway to Heaven." We changed the words so they dealt with "Cabin #1" instead of that lady.  Aima Doll taught me how to finger pick.

At three years old, my little brother was obsessed with Kiss, and we would pretend we were in the band. One night, my mother woke us up and got us out of our beds -- Kiss was going to be on television without their makeup! We sat through Seals & Crofts and Mac Davis, and then finally the moment had arrived! Kiss on "The Midnight Special" without their makeup-- history in the making. They showed the guys, but only the backs of their heads. We were so disappointed, but we learned something profound about the music business that night.

So then I went to college. I went to Brown University. At Brown I didn't study enough.  I mainly was interested in playing shows with my friend Liz Mitchell. We had a group called Liz and Lisa. We played all the time and spent the majority of the last two years of school in the recording studio. A few years after graduating I went solo, and Liz started a band called Ida. Yes, Duncan Sheik played guitar in our band in college for a year. He didn't have a guitar case. That is his real name. I think.

Although I was eight years old when I wrote my first song on the piano (I won an award and played in a recital), I really started writing songs when I was 15. I had trouble remembering all of the Rush and John Cougar songs my guitar teacher was showing me, so I happily agreed to attempt writing my own songs. I wrote an instrumental called "Fried Eggs." When  I started adding lyrics, I bared my soul secretly in the songs. Later I was embarrassed to realize how obvious the lyrics really were. Oh well, I thought I was being very cryptic like my favorite bands,  the Cure, Brian Eno, David Bowie and Jimi Hendrix.

My parents were an influence in their own way (I wish my Mother could write this part). She spent the night outside the Ticketmaster with my older brother so we  could get tickets to see Elton John in 1978.  Between her schlepping me to a million different lessons after school and my father playing the piano constantly (when he wasn't  at work looking in someone's colon), I was immersed in music and performance. Even at school we had at least one of two mandatory shows a year. I played Musetta in "La Boheme," a postman (with a real hat borrowed from our real postman), a young Mexican girl, and Oscar Meyer wiener in a musical fashion show, and Linus in "You're a Good Man Charlie Brown" at the Jewish  Community Center. At home I would sit in walk-in closets with my friend Jasmine and sing songs from the "Best of the Seventies" songbook, like "Evil Woman" and "Philadelphia Freedom." In between making paper-mache whales and doing the Lemon Twist on the Black Top, I made time for lessons-- ballet, tap, piano, music theory, ice skating. By the time I was 14, I had enough extracurriculars to last me a lifetime.

There is a great story about the cover art. A few years ago I found a postcard in Amsterdam. I cherished it but had never heard of the artist. Last summer on a tour of the Benmari Vineyards in upstate New York, I stumbled upon the original of the painting from the postcard. I walked into this  room, and it was entirely filled with these amazing paintings. It turned out the man who owned the winery was the painter! His name is Mark Miller. In the 1950s and '60s, he painted advertisements and magazine covers. His paintings are like a very sexy, romantic, Impressionist version of Norman Rockwell. He retired from painting to become a master winemaker, but he has a beautiful gallery at his vineyard, and recently he's been cataloguing and preserving his  paintings on Photoshop. For the album cover, he used his computer to transform one of the '50s classics into me.

I recorded some demos with Juan. "Stay (I Missed You)" was recorded  that fall. Ethan Hawke asked for a copy of  the song to play for Ben Stiller. It was used in the soundtrack for "Reality Bites." Ethan made a cool video for the song. RCA let him make the video probably because he was a famous movie star. I thought it was a good idea because he had a good concept--  a video done in one take: no edits.  Nonetheless, I tried re-editing the video  because I thought it was important to include  some shots of me playing guitar and singing.  Ethan's idea was stronger artistically and visually even though it didn't show me as a musician, so we went with his version. Later, I would see audience members open their mouths in surprise that I actually could do more than wander around an apartment acting sad over a possible breakup. That was acting-- you know, pretending.