Change

Album: Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You (2022)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • Here, Big Thief singer Adrianne Lenker dreamily ponders the meaning of everything in transition.

    Change like the wind
    Like the water, like skin
    Change like the sky
    Like the leaves, like a butterfly
  • Lenker wrote the song at Studio In The Clouds, a recording retreat facility located just outside the ski resort of Telluride, Colorado. She sweetly insists throughout the tune that change is inevitable and vital.

    "Most songs I write I don't understand them until later," she admitted to Uncut magazine. "It really doesn't feel like I'm writing them. I feel like I'm receiving them. It's like I'm becoming translucent, my body disappears. There's stuff from outside of me. And stuff within me and it mixes into this river and it just moves through."

    "When that happens," she added, "it's euphoric: woah, holy crap! It's just a crazy feeling. At first it feels like a heaviness, a pressure inside, a yearning that I need to sit with a guitar. 'Change' came out in one swoop."

    Within an hour of Lenker writing "Change" she and drummer/producer James Krivchenia were playing the track. Within the next hour they'd recorded it.
  • The song opens Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You. As its title suggests, the album shifts away from Big Thief's early indie rock music toward something more akin to Donavan-esqe cosmic folk.
  • Big Thief took the album title from a line in "Anything," a track on Lenker's 2020 solo album Songs.

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Jeff Trott

Jeff TrottSongwriter Interviews

Sheryl Crow's longtime songwriting partner/guitarist Jeff Trott reveals the stories behind many of the singer's hits, and what its like to be a producer for Leighton Meester and Max Gomez.

British Invasion

British InvasionFact or Fiction

Go beyond The Beatles to see what you know about the British Invasion.

Francis Rossi of Status Quo

Francis Rossi of Status QuoSongwriter Interviews

Doubt led to drive for Francis, who still isn't sure why one of Status Quo's biggest hits is so beloved.

Millie Jackson

Millie JacksonSongwriter Interviews

Outrageously gifted and just plain outrageous, Millie is an R&B and Rap innovator.

Judas Priest

Judas PriestSongwriter Interviews

Rob Halford, Richie Faulkner and Glenn Tipton talk twin guitar harmonies and explain how they create songs in Judas Priest.

AC/DC

AC/DCFact or Fiction

Does Angus really drink himself silly? Did their name come from a sewing machine? See if you can spot the real stories about AC/DC.