Another World

Album: The Crying Light (2008)
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Songfacts®:

  • Antony Hegarty explained to The Sun January 16, 2009 that this requiem for the lost treasures of the natural world, "describes how I feel about the vanishing aspect of the environment and thinking, 'This is my world'. The Earth is the greatest creative force that we know, she's invented so many beautiful aspects."
  • This was originally the lead track of an EP that was a Top 40 hit in a number of countries, including Australia, Sweden and Italy.
  • Antony Hegarty expanded on this song in an interview with Rolling Stone. He explained: "I think a lot of theologies were obsessed with the idea of separating us from our dependence on the natural world and repositioning our dependence on some abstract sky god. Nature was something innately feminine and innately evil; the Eve element. It's the male archetype inside us all, which has gone completely crazy for at least 2,000 years and now has taken our entire ecosystem to the brink of collapse."
  • Hegarty discussed the line "I need another world/ This one is nearly gone," with Mojo magazine May 2009: "When the forests are all cleared there is no more space to dream. My grandmother used to talk to me about the spirits living on the hills. People that grow up in nature are aware of that."
  • The National's Bryce Dessner and Anohni teamed up for a string-laden version titled "Another World (String Arrangement)." The new interpretation is the final track on Dessner's Impermanence/Disintegration album, which was created with the Australian String Quartet. Dessner wrote the record to accompany a dance piece by the Sydney Dance Company inspired by the 2019 Australian wildfires.

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