Holding out for a Savior

Weyes Blood has released her sublime new single, titled “It’s Not Just Me, It’s Everybody”, and has once again come to save a year that feels just as tragic as the sinking ship she named her most recent album after.

Titanic Rising came into 2019 guns blazing, its title a proud refusal of the fate of death in the face of a world breathing its last breaths, a time where we knew societal collapse was on the horizon but just not why. Three years later we still don’t, and neither does Weyes Blood. But that is what makes her music still so powerful, so transcendent: she does not know how to save us and does not pretend to. Instead, she sings what she sees and writes what she feels, letting the melody glow softly from her heart. The new single sounds as if it is submerged in holy water, every note of the piano echoing while her voice glistens above, the occasional strum of a harp coming from some corner of this sea we have been forced to swim through. With each song, Weyes Blood outstretches her hands to the listener, offering a life raft in the middle of a hurricane. It is easy to feel ridiculed or belittled by the countless artists who have decided to address these “unprecedented times” through music. It is exhausting to live as a person on this Earth, and sometimes all we want is a savior, not a hero. They are not the same thing. Sometimes, a savior is simply anyone who will meet you at your level and sit there by your side– even if that means diving down to rock bottom with you. An artist to whom Weyes Blood is often compared, Lorde, put it best when she sang through a smirk, “blow all my friendships to sit in hell with you” (from 2017’s excellent Melodrama).

In a society obsessed with soulmates and romance one day and raging bitterly against it all the next, the need for perfection has been plastered onto everything, even love. It is painful to accept that the prince of your childhood dreams does not exist. And it is easy to scream about it like a little kid, wallowing in the misery of reality and the brokenness of it all. But nothing is black and white. Between the monsters of our minds is the self, looking for mercy. And as Weyes Blood whispers gently on the new single, “mercy is the only cure for being so lonely”.

Often times, when a favorite artist comes back from hiatus, the fans of Twitter and beyond scream into the void “WE DON'T DESERVE YOU”. But we say it to each other, too. A simple act of kindness from a friend is almost impossible for our minds to accept after so many years of hardening and hiding as a means of survival. Weyes Blood is back with new music, and while I could say we don’t deserve her, I think the truth is that we do. We need something that could heal. We need mercy– and we can either drown with our eyes closed or appreciate the beauty on the way down. It is time to accept the uncertainty we have been plunged into, to stop kicking and screaming after all these years, and simply float. It is time to face the music. Weyes Blood’s new album And In the Darkness, Hearts Aglow is out November 18th.

Cover Photo: Getty Images / Robin Little

(This post has been modified and enhanced since its original posting on November 9, 2022)