Alvvays - After the Earthquake

"Drive through. Crying in a milkshake."

Album: Blue Rev [3rd album]
Genre: Jangle Pop, Indie Rock
Album Release: October 6th 2022
Single Release: October 5th 2022 [4th single]
Length: 3:05
Producer: Blue Rev & Shawn Everett
Vocalist: Molly Rankin
Label: Transgressive Records

Music Video


Live in 2022 from San Francisco

Charts, Sales & Streams

Spotify: 16,000,000 +
YouTube Music: 700,000 +

Credits

Details

• 'Blue Rev' has one foot in the past and sounds like the jangly synth music that was popular in the eighties. Rankin has listed some of her favourite songs as 'Black and White' by The DB's and 'He's on the Beach' by Kirsty MacColl. The influence of the songs, from the clear as glass vocals, guitar melodies and striking key changes, are apparent on a first listen.
  
  Alvvays influences are such a key part of their music they name their songs after them. It's difficult to get a more direct influence than that. Not only is 'Tom Verlaine' named after Tom Verlaine from the band Television, but 'Belinda Says', from the same album, is named after Belinda Carlisle, which is what I mean by the band having one foot in the past.
  
  The other foot, however, is firmly rooted in the present. Rankin told the Guardian that she wants to sound like Morrisey and Teenage Fanclub but what comes out is different. Creativity comes from channeling your influences through yourself and yourself is an inextricable part of that. It's your inspiration processed via the way your own particular brain works and its an unusual truism that one persons experience of a song is different to anothers.
  
  If we all heard music the same way there wouldn't be any debate about who had the best three album run or who is the best guitarist of all time. That we all experience music differently is a part of what makes it great.
  
  
• 'After the Earthquake' is about the moments after a disaster when the singer is left to regret her harsh words and hopes everything will be resolved. In the song there is a car crash and the protagonists partner is close to death. The lyrics interweave between the aftermath and the crash "as they rolled you up on a stretcher", the aftermath, "crashing on the pines", the car crashed into trees. This indicates that time, from the perspective of the singer, has become jumbled. Confusing the order of events often happens to people in shock.
  
  The same verse also includes the lines "thrashing around like a great white", the partner injured after the accident and "I feel the northern tide". Tides are often used as a metaphor for death as they are inevitable. The northern tide possibly refers to heaven, as opposed to the south of hell, or could be a reference to the northern climes of Canada.
  
  
• The guitar at the start of 'After the Earthquake' and the way the drums come in is ripped directly out of The Smiths playbook and is especially reminiscent of 'This Charming Man' or 'Bigmouth Strikes Again'. It's a quiet guitar bit that lasts around five seconds followed by the other instruments coming in together which raises the volume.
  
  
• 'Blue Rev' was the name of an alcopop that Rankin and MacLellan drank as teenagers in Canada.
  
  
  
• Add 'After the Earthquake' to the list of Rankin relationships that haven't worked out. She sure does seem to be unlucky in love. This song features the lyric "why would I ever fall in love again?" Molly Rankin has described her songwriting as similar to Tracyanne Campbell's from Camera Obscura because they both share "a fondess for the pathetic perspective."
  
  In 'After the Earthquake' her partner has suffered an accident and is near death in a hospital bed. Rankin has used her songwriting to lyrically kill a potential lover in what could potentially be a victory for feminism, if it wasn't so obsessed with having a lover in the first place. It's possible to be free without having your lover nearly die in an accident. She could have simply being single. Although such a framing is perhaps acknowledging expected attachments in order to rid herself of them.
  
  Someone needs to start a campaign to find Molly Rankin a decent guy but if that happens what will she write about?
  
  

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