Songfacts®:

• "Elderberry Wine" is North Carolina's noise-poets Wednesday's first original release since their critically acclaimed 2023 album Rat Saw God. It moves away from their previous shoegaze and fuzz-heavy sound toward a more Americana-influenced style: less distortion, more pedal steel.
• Singer and chief lyricist Karly Hartzman taps into something deceptively simple: how things that seem sweet or nourishing - love, family, success - can go toxic in just the right (or wrong) conditions.
  
  "Elderberry is known as a healing fruit and is an ingredient in many tonics and syrups to aid the immune system," she explained. "One time, however, my sister consumed them raw, and it immediately induced vomiting. So 'Elderberry Wine' is ultimately a love song about creating just the right environment for fulfillment. There's a delicate balance that needs to be created, especially in love, for two lives to intersect without poisoning each other."
• Hartzman's voice floats above a blend of dusty guitar licks and lap steel, courtesy of MJ Lenderman and Xandy Chelmis. The band's core lineup - rounded out by Alan Miller on drums and Ethan Baechtold on bass - gives the track a bittersweet lilt.
• Alex Farrar produced, mixed, and engineered the track at Drop of Sun Studios, Asheville, North Carolina, which he co-founded in 2015. Farrar has been a key collaborator with Wednesday since 2021, shaping their ever-evolving sound.
• The accompanying video, directed by photographer and indie filmmaker Spencer Kelly, was shot at The Bench - Greensboro's second-oldest bar and a kind of living, neon-lit time capsule. According to Kelly, the goal was authenticity, and it shows. The video features real-life bar regulars, including Karly's own father, George Hartzman. "This is a bit of a love letter to places like The Bench," said Kelly. "Where people swap stories, listen to music, and the beers are cold even if the jukebox isn't."
• Wednesday made their late-night television debut when they performed "Elderberry Wine" on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on May 21, 2025.