By Edward Bayliss
Indie-pop band, ‘ivies’, recently released their latest single, ‘i don’t wanna care’. Their band, formed of current Durham students and recent graduates, consists of vocalist Alice Bird, lead guitarist Alfie French, bassist Kiko Keighery, and featuring on this track are also drummer Ed Jobburn, and rhythm guitarist Ben Harrisson. Alice describes the character and creation of the song with the following words:
‘As a chronic people pleaser, I spend way too much time and energy worrying about what I think people think about me. I often wish that I could let go of these anxieties and just live my life without the weight of other people’s opinions, so I wrote this song about it. We capture the chaos and frustration of dealing with these feelings through rapid lyrical runs and shouted backing vocals. This is wrapped up in an upbeat chorus that echoes the energy of the song’s predecessors ‘sick for a week’ and ‘drunk honesty’ but a deep dive into the lyrics show a more vulnerable side, depicting the prevalence of self-consciousness in this digital age.’
I am usually slightly suspicious of song titles that feel the need to do away with proper grammar or capital letters as a stylistic choice to provoke a more casual or intimate atmosphere. My Bloody Valentine pioneered the same tactic in their ‘loveless’ album back in 1991, but since then, Travis Scott, Ariana Grande, Billie Eilish, Taylor Swift, and many others have all gone lower-case in recent albums. I understand that it is an aesthetic choice, and if suited to the song’s sentiments, it can sometimes work, but often it appears, ironically, to force-feed us manufactured impressions of cool carelessness. Incongruity between a song’s title and its presentation can also jar against our ears – take Zayn’s laughably titled ‘PILLOWTALK’, for instance. All this – but then again, what’s in a name? I am however glad to report that the ivies’ song title ‘i don’t wanna care’, works – it’s no capital crime. It is consistent with the presentation of the band’s previous song titles, but more importantly, its disregard of capitals is symptomatic of the song’s desire for carelessness itself – a central theme of the song.
‘i don’t wanna care’ trips excitedly on clean guitar seventh chords at its beginning, giving it a sharp yet longing summery feel. A bass guitar and drums widen the sound, recollecting hits from Beach Bunny (think ‘Cloud 9’), with the bass climbing and falling, affording a sense of momentum to the piece. For a song with such tormented lyrics, the music is carried by a remarkable buoyancy. Perhaps, as with the song title and its apparent disregard for rules, the music also tries to break from any impression of rigidity or constriction. The lyrics seem to slip easily from vocalist Alice Bird’s mouth – the words are themselves agile and alive (like in many of Olivia Rodrigo’s songs) – again, in strange but effective opposition to the constrained themes of the song. It is this conflict that gives the song its compelling character.
ivies’ song builds to a nicely bending guitar solo that tries to reach higher and higher, until we return to the next verse, which drops into discussion of feeling ‘crazy’, wanting to ‘let go’ and ‘unscrew’. Vocals are more liberally applied and layered after this at the song’s denouement, as the narrative grasps for further ‘carelessness’ and certain freedoms so difficult to possess in today’s culture of ‘social pressures’, according to vocalist Alice. By the end of the song, the lyrics and music are at their most intense, their most resistant – trying desperately to wrestle with the weight of ‘other people’s opinions’ and the resultant ‘anxieties’.
This single is cleverly constructed – its themes in some ways reflect, and in some ways scrape against the surface of music beneath it. This is the narrative of someone disoriented and confused, who doesn’t want to care, but also feels the suffocating pressure of opinion and judgement.
You can listen to ivies’ new single on Spotify.
Image provided by the band.