BODEGA Cover New Ground on the Romantic Ballad “Pillar on the Bridge of You”

The Brooklyn-based group shares a visual for the shamelessly amorous single ahead of their new record Broken Equipment.
First Listen

BODEGA Cover New Ground on the Romantic Ballad “Pillar on the Bridge of You”

The Brooklyn-based group shares a visual for the shamelessly amorous single ahead of their new record Broken Equipment.

Words: Mike LeSuer

Photo: Pooneh Ghana

March 09, 2022

At this point in history there isn’t a whole lot to say about love that hasn’t already been said in a Norton anthology of poetry or Meg Ryan’s filmography. But it’s easy to scoff at yet another thoughtless love song climbing the singles charts until you’re in the throes of a relationship yourself, finding that you’re in so deep that you connect with even the most vapid lyrics you have ever heard on the subject. 

For BODEGA’s Ben Hozie, the subject ultimately became inevitable after glossing over it on their 2018 debut album. On the new single “Pillar on the Bridge of You,” Hozie professes his love for his “partner in romance, art, and BODEGA” Nikki Belfigio through the language of brusque and just-a-bit-dream-poppy post-punk in the same vein as their fellow all-caps-noun contemporaries SPICE. “Our band, for the most part, has avoided pop’s universal subject matter, love, not because we think it an unworthy subject but because I haven’t been sure how to approach it in BODEGA’s style,” Hozie shares. “I wrote the kernel of the lyrics in 2016 but didn’t set them to a finished song until working on the Broken Equipment album in 2020 (where I discovered the descending riff which seemed to evoke the euphoria of a new crush).”

He continues, “The desperate masochism of the verse’s pleading lyrics suggests my current twofold philosophy on the nature of erotic love: (1) It is initially all-consuming, self-nihilating, and potentially destructive; it necessarily takes over your very being and transforms your spirit and entire life. You submit to it because you have no choice in the matter. (2) It only will be substantial if out of this first erotic spark there is a shared sense of purpose. Me and Nikki’s erotic relationship, I think, has been successful primarily because we have a shared project in BODEGA and the various art projects we labor to make together. In this sense, it reanimates the self—she makes me, like romantic comedies tend to put it, ‘a better person.’ This trope is only a cliche because it is true.”

The single arrives with a stylish and—dare I say—sort of cute black-and-white call-and-response visual starring Hozie and Belfigio. Watch it below.