No more Miss U-Haul.

Between Cokes and Camel Lights at Fez, the chi-chi Manhattan music venue, 29-year-old Melissa Ferrick is explaining why she decided to call her fifth and newest CD Freedom. Seated in a cushy corner nook, the powder-blue--eyed Ferrick reveals that she's been single for just 60 days, having hopped "from U-Haul to U-Haul" for most of her 20s.

In her first interview in support of her latest release, the Massachusetts native speaks about her trials in finding the ultimate romance. "It's the quintessential lesbian love story," she says of how she's jumped from one failed long-term relationship to the next. "I'm in love, and then I'm not, and then I'm already with someone else." This may be why Ferrick has reigned as a kind of queen of the anti-love song ever since she released her debut, Massive Blur, on major label Atlantic in 1993.

When the company dropped her after her second CD, Willing to Wait--allegedly without promoting it--Ferrick continued to tour relentlessly, garnering a huge lesbian following in the process. She later jumped to tiny indie label W.A.R.? (short for What Are Records?), where she traded in her coddled big-expense days for creative autonomy.

Like her musical heroes Shawn Colvin and Joan Armatrading, Ferrick can dangle a crowd on the lilt of a lyric and nail the nuance of a conflicted feeling with one well-sung word. And the skeletal but riveting Freedom showcases Ferrick's ability to evoke emotions from bitterness to bliss. Finessing the work on a shoestring budget of $5,000, Ferrick and her bassist, Marika Tjelios, produced, mixed, and recorded the songs on a digital four-track. Recorded in a one-room apartment, the entire disc was made using only Tjelios, Ferrick's acoustic guitar and vocals, and some drum loops.

"I slept on a couch for six weeks. I was unhealthy, I wasn't eating, and we were stealing coffee from the cafe that my bass player works at," Ferrick recalls of the painstaking process. But Ferrick's a resourceful alley cat of a performer, and the angst she suffers seeps alluringly into her croaky, staccato vocals and percussive acoustic guitar strums.

Several of the CD's songs betray the recent demise of a 3 1/2-year relationship she had in Los Angeles. "My ex is, shall we say, a little hooked up in Hollywood," Ferrick says dryly. "There was this air about her that always made me uncomfortable. She was always lifting me up on a pedestal to get her into the right parties."

The split between Ferrick and her ex culminated when the artist came home from a tour to find an empty house. Deciding to return to her parents' home in Boston, Ferrick booked a flight and, without skipping a beat, picked up a beautiful woman at the airport. She later drove across the country with her for eight months.

"I've always had this twisted response to love," says Ferrick, "and I wonder, Will I ever have what my parents have? Is that possible?" For now, the singer is enjoying being single, though she was shocked recently by a night out at a Boston club.

"I felt like a fish in a bowl," she says, clearly mystified by the increasing level of recognition she now experiences. "Nobody talked to me. They just kind of ran by me and pointed." Ferrick hesitantly approached one woman she'd been eyeing all night. "I was really nervous and told her so. She said, `You've got to be kidding.' Everyone thinks I'm going to be like, `Oh, you want me,' like I'm that kind of person."

But Ferrick can't deny her sexy stage persona and the trademark flirty between-song banter that utterly enchants her fans. "It's tree," she relents, "but I'm really shy, and in the end, that's what shocks people most about me."

Tucker writes for Time Out New York, Interview, Paper, and Acoustic Guitar.