Best New songFleet Foxes — Third of May / Ōdaigahara
Posted by LetsLoop on March 7, 2017, 3:17 pmIt's been nearly 6 years since we last heard from @Fleet Foxes, but the indie-folk legends are finally back!
Third of May / Odaigahara is the lead single to their upcoming 3rd album, Crack-Up, which is out June 16th and follows up 2011's Helplessness Blues and their stunning 2008 debut album, Fleet Foxes.
Here's what frontman Robin Pecknold (who wrote all 11 songs on Crack-Up) had to say about the new album:
"I’ve struggled at times with finding a solid, objective reason to live, or I should say I’ve struggled with the notion of needing an airtight reason. So that has meant coming around to making my own meaning, and finding meaning in connection to other people.
Lyrically, a lot of the album deals with perception, and the difference between how I have seen the world and how it actually is, in terms of people or situations or self-assessment, or any other permutation of the problem. As I get older I try and take people as they are and project less onto them, either good or bad, not make damsels or heroes or villains out of people who are just individuals doing their best with the hand they've been dealt.
As far as how the title relates to the structure of the album, the editing and arrangement, there are a number of songs where I wanted the transitions to feel jarring, non-linear, like you were watching a movie that has been edited partially out of sequence, like a Nicolas Roeg movie, or as if it’s a stained glass window that’s been shattered and reassembled."
And here's what he had to say about the lead single, Third of May / Odaigahara:
"My friend and bandmate Skyler Skjelset’s birthday is May 3, and our album Helplessness Blues was released on May 3, 2011. The song “Third of May / Odaigahara” is about my relationship with Skye. It addresses our distance in the years after touring that album, the feeling of having an unresolved, unrequited relationship that is lingering psychologically. Even if some time apart was necessary and progressive for both of us as individuals, I missed our connection, especially the one we had when we were teenagers, and the lyrics for the song grew out of that feeling.
It felt like a funny coincidence to see a Goya painting called Third of May. The compounded coincidences, and how the whole experience of playing music with him itself felt like a series of lucky breaks and coincidences, left me feeling like it was a good phrase to use for the title of a song. Beyond that, though, the painting only served to inspire a few of the lyrics, like, “Aren’t we made to be crowded together like leaves,” or, “Stood, congregated, at the firing line,” but those lines are about Skye and I, and our time playing music together, and not the political events depicted in the painting."
And finally he discussed a possible solo album and the next Fleet Foxes album:
"I’m still writing songs for that and the next Fleet Foxes album. The solo album songs have a different character, different stakes, and the next Fleet Foxes album will be fully ecstatic. I feel like Crack-Up begins in pure conflicted solitude and ends in a bright clearing, one of closeness, like the top right hand corner of the photograph on the album cover. I’d like the next band album to be a celebration of or elaboration on how Crack-Up ends."
To celebrate the release of the new album, Fleet Foxes will be doing a worldwide tour supported by @Animal Collective, @The Walkmen's @Hamilton Leithauser and @Beach House. The concerts kick-off with a 4-day stint at the Sydney Opera House on May 26th. Head over to the Concerts tab on their profile page to grab some tickets if they're coming to your town.
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