Waxahatchee - "Breathless"

My favourite way for a song to be, in this world, is in disguise. There are different levels. You've got your sad songs dressed as happy ones - we'll get to these another day but you know what I mean, the ones that take wallow and boredom and lonely and roll them in sequins, wrap them in a chorus you can't shake. Songs like this can be funny (and sometimes Too Cute), but if done right they serve a sneaky purpose; they're a way for you to carry your bad feelings around right out in the open, without anyone else looking twice. In the grocery store, on the radio, in your head, you hear your heartbreak set all catchy and it's a secret signal, small thrill. You can't always defeat the thing in which you're mired, but you can make it sing for you.

But there's a second kind too, more subtle. "Breathless" starts off like a love song - broad strokes, ringing organ, You look at me like I'm a rose, those guitars singing past like other headlights on a night drive - and if you let the thing's sound carry you alone, you might not even notice what's actually going on. You take what you want, you call me back. I'm not trying to be yours. It's not love Katie Crutchfield's singing about - or at least not exactly, anymore. It's a hymn for something done but maybe not quite finished; the sound of finding yourself back somewhere, with someone, and knowing it's been over. Already somewhere else, but still, you're here. Her voice and the organ's steady line all rising to meet each other and never quite touching, a perfect machine made of near misses. You see me how I wish I was - but I'm not trying to be seen. It looks like a love song but it shivers when you touch it, bends more like a certain type of long silence: bare feet on cold kitchen tile, long empty light in the afternoon. The walk home by yourself. The balance shifting back.

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