On first listen, “Fire” by Waxahatchee feels like two people trying to find their footing in a relationship. In a way, it is, but not like you might think.
For Katie Crutchfield, who records and performs under the name Waxahatchee, her experience growing up in Alabama continues to thread her work. And in “Fire”, she glances inward in a moving and therapeutic folk song.
Over the Mississippi
In a press release, she said, “The idea and melody for “Fire” was dreamt up while driving over the Mississippi River from Memphis into West Memphis, AR, sun reflecting off the water which literally made West Memphis glow.” But her partner and musician, Kevin Morby, was also in the car. So she kept her idea quiet, and when they stopped, she wrote it down.
That’s what I wanted,
It’s not as if we cry a river, call it rain.
West Memphis is on fire in the light of day.
Give me something; it ain’t enough,
It ain’t enough.
I take it for granted,
If I could love you unconditionally,
I could iron out the edges of the darkest sky.
For some of us, it ain’t enough,
It ain’t enough.
Crutchfield studies her past to learn about the person she’s become. “Fire” is a song about destination and relationships, though she’s not singing to a romantic partner. Instead, Crutchfield is in conversation with herself.
When I take off driving,
Past places, been tainted,
I put on a good show for you.
And when I turn back around,
Will you drain me back out?
Will you let me believe that I broke through?
Which Way Is Home?
When Crutchfield drives from her current home in Kansas City, Missouri, to her hometown in Birmingham, Alabama, she crosses the Mississippi River through Memphis. It’s like she’s crossing an emotional Rubicon between her past life and the current one.
Even as we evolve, it brings up the question of how much of our past selves remains. For Crutchfield, her past iteration seems to linger like a ghost.
Tomorrow could feel like a hundred years later,
I’m wiser and slow and attuned.
And I am down on my knees,
I’m a bird in the trees,
I can learn to see with a partial view.
I can learn to be easy as I move in close to you.
Photo by Robin Little/Redferns