Julien Baker continues to build up to the Friday release of her next full-length studio album, Little Oblivions, with more single releases. On Wednesday, Baker shared another new track, entitled “Heatwave”, set to appear on her forthcoming album. The song follows “Favor”, “Faith Healer” and “Hardline” as the fourth pre-release album track shared by the singer-songwriter thus far.
On “Heatwave”m Baker offers honest but dark lyrical themes alongside her trademark melancholic melodies and a lively drum beat. Throughout the indie-rock track, Baker sings, “Nothing to lose till everything’s really gone/It’s worse than death that life compressed” and “I was on a long spiral down before I make it to the ground/I’ll wrap Orion’s belt around my neck and kick the chair out.”
A lengthy statement about the new song shared by Baker along with its release on Wednesday reads,
Maybe it’s a trite or well-trod topic, but “Heatwave” is really just about being confronted with how much time I spend worrying about things that are trivial. I was stuck in traffic because a car had randomly combusted, and it made me feel so stupid for being concerned with the things I had been anxious about earlier that day. It was just such a poignant thing, an event that communicated a lot of complex things in a single image. So I wrote a song about it. I know I’m not the first person to witness an atrocity and consider my own mortality or life’s fragility because of it, but that truly was my experience.
Theoretically the lesson or symbolism to be interpreted there is that life is precious and it’s not worth it to give your time and energy to negative thoughts, but jesus, how could you be a person alive on earth right now and not have negative thoughts? It’s certainly less romantic to say that the consideration of life’s fragility made me feel relieved at my own inconsequence, but it’s true; it is comforting to think of the minuscule role everyone plays in the human drama, to realize we have more choice about what we give power over us than we maybe thought.
Listen to the new song from Baker via its official lyric video below.
Julien Baker – “Heatwave”
[Video: Julien Baker]
Additionally, Baker covered Radiohead‘s “Everything in Its Right Place” for her virtual session on SiriusXM‘s SiriusXMU channel, which aired on Wednesday night. Listen to Baker’s take on the Kid A track in the video player below.
Julien Baker – “Everything In Its Right Place” [Radiohead Cover]
[Video: SiriusXM]
Click here to pre-order Little Oblivions, out Friday via Matador Records.
[H/T Pitchfork]