Katie Pruitt has spent her career writing about what it means to be a queer woman in America. On her third album, Fools for the Fleeting, she turns inward and outward at once. The 32-year-old Georgia native, who moved to Nashville from Atlanta, says the record came out of a breakup after a seven-year relationship, but it also carries the weight of years of upheaval: post-Covid, post-Trump, post-AI, post-social-media. The 10-track LP, released Friday on Rounder Records, is her first studio album since Mantras in 2024.
The album’s title track, “Fools for the Fleeting,” sets the tone with its lyric: “Moments are sweetly misleading, and we are just fools for the fleeting.” That line sums up the whole record — a recognition that the present is slippery, and love is too.
The Breakup Song That Became Political
“The Aftermath” opens the record. It starts as a breakup anthem, then pivots to a political statement about life under the second term of President Trump. Pruitt sings, “End of the world isn’t this entertaining/never a day when the news isn’t breaking,” before landing the lyrical A-bomb: “Handed the wrong man the keys.”
“It’s about living in the aftermath of both a cultural and personal change,” Pruitt told Rolling Stone. “It’s kind of on the heels of the end of a pretty significant relationship in my 20s, but it’s also post-Covid, post-Trump administration, post-AI boom, and social media.”
The song serves as the context for everything that follows. The world imposes itself on Pruitt’s personal turmoil, a subject she returns to throughout the album.
Little Boxes and the Screen Trap
“Little Boxes” is a lament about the digital age. Pruitt wants a connection beyond the rectangle we stare at all day. “I want a connection beyond this rectangular box that we’re staring at all the time,” she says.
The song reflects a broader anxiety about how screens have reshaped human connection. She notes that everyone she talks to has started using apps like Brick to block distractions. “We’re getting creative at how to not look at our phones right now, when really, the answer is just, get face-to-face. Have conversations. Real connection takes effort these days.”
She also pushes back against labels. “Labels are important to have, but that’s not all we are. We’re more nuanced than that. I’m not just a lesbian. I’m also a daughter and a girlfriend and a sister, you know?”
The Tour and the Awards Night
Pruitt has a coast-to-coast headlining tour lined up through most of the fall, mostly in mid-sized rock rooms. She’ll be backed by artists like Next of Kin, Olivia Barton, and Judy Blank. The run caps in Music City with a Dec. 2 show at the Basement East.
On a hot Wednesday morning in East Nashville, before she and Sadler Vaden performed at the Ryman Auditorium during the Americana Honors & Awards, presenting Ken Pomeroy with the Emerging Act of the Year award, Pruitt reflected on the question she’d posted on social media in early September: “What’s something that’s restored your faith in humanity recently?”
Her answer was simple: seeing people organize and come together on behalf of marginalized communities. “We’ve seen it so much. Every time something devastating happens in our country — we saw it Minneapolis earlier this year — people take to the streets, in a positive way! You see positive, peaceful protest, a demonstration of, like, this is how you stick up for people. This is how you can be a human that is kind.”
What the Album Asks of Its Listeners
Pruitt’s hope for the record is modest but sincere. She doesn’t know what people are going through at any given time, but she hopes the music gives them a reason to be more intentional. “I hope this record gives them a reason to say, ‘I am going to be more intentional with my moments, and look at people face-to-face, and use the time that I have here wisely.’ There is a lot of heartache, for sure, but I hope that there’s also a thread of hope.”
The album’s title promises a meeting, and Pruitt delivers on that promise. It’s a record about being present — in grief, in politics, in the room with someone you love.
KEY FACTS
– Fools for the Fleeting: 10 tracks, released Friday on Rounder Records
– Mantras: Pruitt’s previous studio LP, released 2024
– Guest appearances: Nolan Taylor (vocals on “Blackout”), Sierra Hull (mandolin on “Orion’s Belt”)
– Tour runs through fall, ending Dec. 2 at Nashville’s Basement East
– Americana Honors & Awards performance: Sadler Vaden, presenting Ken Pomeroy with Emerging Act of the Year
Pruitt’s honesty is the album’s strength. She doesn’t romanticize heartbreak or pretend the world is fine. She writes about both at once, and the result is warmer for it.
See the video the story is built around at Rolling Stone.
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