In March 2020, the world was falling apart. I, like many of you, was sitting at home wondering if the world was going to end. And then out of nowhere, Waxahatchee put out a record called Saint Cloud. It was a sunlit meditation on rejuvenation when we were at our lowest, a timely gift. I turned that record over countless times during the pandemic, searching its corners for hope and solace, and most of the time, I found it.
Katie Crutchfield, who performs as Waxahatchee, didn’t know that she was recording a response to a global pandemic when she made St. Cloud. Instead, she was just reinventing her sound alongside her sobriety, connecting to the country music she was raised on. She took this evolution a step further with I Walked With You A Ways, a country duo record with Jess Williamson that features magnificent harmonies and songwriting. In her reinvention, we can find new ways to imagine ourselves.
Her new single “Right Back To It” is then a continuation of this musical journey: a slow, banjo-flecked ballad that reflects on the ebbs and flows of a relationship. The lyrics contemplate the perils and comforts of routine—rehearsing the same old faults, but also the same old love. The airy, spacious production asks the listener to slow down and find themselves in the story like the very best country songs do. MJ Lenderman offers tender supporting vocals in the chorus, rounding out the narrative and revealing the ways that this rising and falling is so frequently two-sided. “Right Back To It” then answers the question of how the new Waxahatchee record Tigers Blood—due to arrive March 22nd—will follow up on the magic of Saint Cloud: through patient, precise songwriting and an invitation for you to place yourself in its stories.
“I wrote ‘Right Back To It’ backstage at Wolf Trap when I was on tour opening for Jason Isbell and Sheryl Crow,” Crutchfield explains in an official statement. “I’m really interested in writing love songs that are gritty and unromantic. I wanted to make a song about the ebb and flow of a longtime love story. I thought it might feel untraditional but a little more in alignment with my experience to write about feeling insecure or foiled in some way internally, but always finding your way back to a newness or an intimacy with the same person.”
Watch the official video for “Right Back To It” below.
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