We’ve all been there: It’s a sleepless night and the fact that you can’t fall asleep only inspires you to think more intently about not being able to sleep, which in turn only makes it harder to fall asleep. For Memphis-based songwriter Kate Teague, the infuriating cycle was broken one night by penning a song from the perspective of her dog, silently watching Teague endlessly writhing around and muttering the name of the individual who’d bestowed this fate upon her.
“This has to be one of the only songs I’ve ever written during an actual fit of despair and anger. There was no second draft of this,” Teague shares of the new single “I Feel Bad For My Dog,” a serene, nearly talked ballad in which her soft vocals land gently over soft organ hums, droning electric guitar, and pattering snare. “I wrote it because I didn’t know what to do with myself; I was so upset and I couldn’t sleep and it was the only thing I could think to do that would help me feel better.”
The track from her forthcoming Loose Screw EP brilliantly adds new perspectives (the second verse brings Teague’s mom into the equation) to a situation that’s impossibly difficult to remove oneself from—when all you can think about is the suffering you’ve undergone which has only led to more suffering. “For a while after I wrote it I felt self-conscious that the lyrics were so plainspoken,” she adds, “but then I realized that changing them would discredit that moment in time. It’s straight up a time capsule of a night where I felt like I was actually going crazy...and you can’t fix crazy, as it goes, so I knew I couldn’t touch the lyrics again.”
Listen to “I Feel Bad For My Dog” below, and pre-save Loose Screw here.
