Earlier this summer, before temperatures took us to the fiery pits of hell, Yeah Yeah Yeahs made a grand return. They announced their forthcoming album Cool It Down with a timely apocalyptic anthem "Spitting Off the Edge of the World" featuring Perfume Genius and an unforgettable video to match. Today, like the soaring temps, they keep things hot with their follow-up single "Burning" that was produced by Andrew Wyatt and was inspired by The Four Seasons’ "Beggin."
"Back when I was 19 living in the East Village, one night a roommate dragged me out of the apartment for an impromptu drink across the street," Karen O shared in a statement. "I left a votive candle burning on a plastic Yaffa block which in my absence set flame to my room. Within an hour and a half of having one drink down the block firefighters had come and gone extinguishing the fire, I came home to find that a natural disaster had occurred (to my room) and most of my stuff, lost in the flames. All electronic goods were melted and demolished like my laptop, cameras, etc., but oddly enough the items that held the most sentimental value remained intact like sketchbooks, a favorite sweater with hearts across the chest, and photographs. I had photos of my parents in their youth where the fire burnt around the two of them as if there was some intangible force field protecting them, many photos like that, mysteriously leaving the beloved subjects untouched."
She continued: "If the world is on fire I hope the most beloved stay protected and that we do all we can to protect what we cherish most in this life. ‘Burning’ is a song about that feeling, smoke signals for the soul. Begging to cool it down, just doing it the best we know how. Nick [Zinner] and I nodded to Frankie Valli’s ‘Begging,’ with the line, ‘Oooh, lay your red hand on me, baby.’ We’ve cut a rug to many a soulful '60s banger in our day, it was in our DNA by the time we wrote ‘Burning.’"
Listen to "Burning" below, and pre-order Cool It Down here.
