Tiger's Blood
It might bring me something, it might weigh me down
I had every intention of saving my first listen of Waxahatchee’s newest album Tiger’s Blood for a Sunday morning a couple weeks ago, because I had a flight scheduled. I am of the opinion that one of the of the best ways to listen to music for the first time is to do it totally immersed, and where better to be void of distraction than high in the air, away from most of civilization, with nothing to entertain you save the spotty messaging-only internet and a mixed bag of airline-provided films.
I couldn’t wait that long. Instead I got excited, and after hosting a beloved friend for dinner, I retreated to the kitchen to do the dishes alone and I pressed play on the first song on the album. It felt poignant to listen to in a home filled with the laughter of two of the people closest to me, our relationships so understanding that I could excuse myself from hanging out for a while to put on headphones and disappear into another world entirely.
When I initially tried to sum up my first listen of the album I was awash with so many feelings it's hard to pinpoint exactly what I want to say. On a notepad written with sudsy hands I scrawl: “It feels so good.”
There’s a feeling I get before breaking into a cry, my whole face begins to sparkle and tingle, the pressure wells up in my tear ducts and my heart flutters. That’s how I feel on first listen—I think I love this album already and I barely know it.
My husband turned me on to Katie Crutchfield's Waxahatchee after she released Out in The Storm and I liked her almost instantly. Many of those songs still mean so much to me. They put into words feelings that are at the edge of intangible: “Brass Beam” for when I’m pissed off at the same old same old, “Never Been Wrong” and “Recite Remorse” as loud as my speakers will go driving around the city at night, “8 Ball” when I’m doing my hair and makeup to go meet friends at a bar at 8pm while it’s still light out on a too-hot summer night. “No Questions” on a shitty phone speaker played beside a lake with a melting popsicle in hand. I have often remarked, at a near loss for words, that this album rocks. In my teens I would have said this about The Donnas or Avril Lavigne—the only words I have to express the incredulous and joyful awe of a girl watching another girl rage.
In 2020, Saint Cloud was released during the COVID pandemic. As the world shut down, musicians who normally toured were benched along with the rest of us, and they resorted to Instagram Lives to connect with their crowds. There were many evenings with Waxahatchee playing concerts on my phone screen. Saint Cloud went on to play in the background of many of the afternoons that stretched into oblivion. It was with me while I learned to pour candles, my activity of choice when others were learning to knit or bake sourdough. It was with me when I played Animal Crossing and tried to take my mind away from how fucked everything felt.
There’s one moment in particular with this album that stands alone in my mind; a day where I listened to it in its entirety by a deep creek during the height of the summer of 2020. I spent the day in my swimsuit in and out of the water, hanging out on a quilt of my own next to the quilts of two of my dearest friends. The time passed slowly while I wrote to myself, tried to catch baby turtles and was deeply glad that, at least, we had this. During that period of time everything about me and my priorities in life was changing, but all versions of me would have enjoyed that day by the river. Saint Cloud was, in many ways, the soundtrack of my life being broken into pieces, and then of it reforming into something more substantial.
I think Tiger’s Blood exists in the liminal space between those albums. A sister to them, certainly, but an entity all its own. While Saint Cloud reminds me of breaking and rebuilding, Tiger’s Blood pulses with the energy of someone going to the ring to fight it out with past versions of themselves. It’s tough: it feels both sure and unsure of itself at the same time. It packs a punch. I find myself resonating with different lines in nearly every song on this album, but none as much as “Bored.”
In a newsletter sent out with the song’s single release on February 13th, Crutchfield writes:
I wrote “Bored” in the wake of a friendship that ended badly & I was pretty shattered by it. I learned a lot from how the whole thing played out. I certainly could have done things differently and I certainly had a part in why it ended badly, but this is one of those situations where anger was called for and was the only authentic place from which to write about what I was experiencing.
I hope you listen to it before you go quit your job, dump some jerk you’re dating, feel heinously, egregiously, unbelievably wronged or are genuinely so over a bad situation that you’ve grown bored of it. Turn it up loud, windows down, I would love to be your friend in that moment.
This song became an anthem for me for a couple of weeks after. It found me at the right time. I was in the midst of a major life transition while fighting out some frustrations with myself. I listened to “Bored” over and over and over again, almost as a meditation. It felt kismet and I felt grateful to have that song as a friend, just as the songwriter had intended.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention “Right Back To It,” the first single from the album. In the music video you see Katie Crutchfield perched on the back of a low boat in a bayou on the border of Louisiana and Texas. The video is uncomplicated, a good foil for the song itself, which has depth. Supported by the vocals of MJ Lenderman, it’s a perfect modern love song. “Right Back To It” is about the complexity of a long term relationship, one that has space for the unromantic and mundane. It’s about finding your way back to someone over and over again.
I’ve listened to Tiger’s Blood several times over now, and can confirm there are no skips. Each song is intense and emotional, raw and unyielding. You can tell these songs are personal, and written by someone who is curious about her own becoming, as messy and nonlinear as that might be.
On every listen I have a new favorite track. First it was “365”, a song about how codependency can shape your world. Next it was “Lone Star Lake,” anthemic for anyone who feels lost and like a failure sometimes. Right now it’s “3 Sisters,” the album’s extremely strong opener.
As someone with a tendency to over-assess myself while taking a sometimes maddening approach to self-compassion, I continue to bask in Tiger's Blood. I feel a camaraderie with these twelve songs. At times it makes me feel found out, like someone's been reading my diary, but Katie Crutchfield would never. Instead I take this album as a passed note, from one person figuring it out, to another.
Thank you for your support. It means the world to me that you’d continue to extend the invite into your internet living room. The newsletter means a lot to me and I am consistently thrilled to learn that it means something to other people. Let’s say for a second that you like what you see here and want to continue the support. In that case, you can do one (or more!) of the following:
Give this post a like and leave a comment or send me a message!
Consider becoming a paid subscriber. I love writing this newsletter, and I love keeping it in front of the paywall. Optional paid subscriptions support me and keep this a sustainable part of my creative life while keeping it free for the masses.
Forward this email to a few friends who would enjoy it.
Follow me on Instagram!