In a long tradition of mid-career self-titled records serving as a reorienting of sorts for their creators, Dayglow’s fourth album released over the course of the last six years sees the artist returning to the project’s central thesis after a few not-unwelcome adventures off the beaten path. “It felt like I had unlocked a trapped part of my brain creatively,” the project’s mastermind Sloan Struble tells us of his experience completing the record’s first track. “It was like, ‘Oh yeah, this is what my music is supposed to sound like, this is Dayglow!’”
The track in question, pre-album single “Every Little Thing I Say I Do,” mines the musical territory revisionists now refer to as “indie sleaze,” with The Strokes, Phoenix, and cult songwriter Darwin Deez being listed as influences on the electric-guitar-centric composition. Meanwhile, the lyrics across the record see Struble continue to hone his balance of irony and earnest expression, with mid-album cut “What People Really Do” transparently demonstrating this progress. “My music tends to be coined as very ‘uplifting,’ but almost all of my lyrics are pretty sarcastic and direct,” he notes. “I love to make songs that have a paradox of emotions that tell both sides of a story both lyrically and musically.”
With Dayglow out today via Mercury Records, Struble took us track by track through his latest revealing collection of songs to share how they tie the project’s brief history together—from leaning into the musical influences of his youth to repackaging his first-ever recording under the moniker to open his album with. Stream along and read his commentary below.
1. “Mindless Creatures”
I first started writing “Mindless Creatures” when I was 16, and I posted it on SoundCloud in 2017. It was the first Dayglow song to ever exist on the internet. It’s a song about feeling like a jaded old man and how you just see the world negatively (think “Get off my lawn!”). It’s ironic in so many ways because I started to actually feel like that currently, so I rewrote the song as my current adult self. It felt so full-circle and cleansing to finally finish it and release it. It only felt right to make it the opening track to the self-titled record, considering its origin.
2. “Every Little Thing I Say I Do”
“Every Little Thing I Say I Do” was the first song I finished on the record. After I made it, it felt like I had unlocked a trapped part of my brain creatively. It was like, “Oh yeah, this is what my music is supposed to sound like, this is Dayglow!” It set the scene for the rest of the record to exist and be like the electric-guitar-driven-2010s sound my first record was, and my favorite music is (i.e. Phoenix, Darwin Deez, The Strokes, etc).
3. “Cocoon”
“Cocoon” is a very timely and symbolic track lyrically to me. Most of my songs tend to be about processing change and growing up, and “Cocoon” perfectly encapsulates that current change in my life—the growing pain of completely changing what you are and learning how to fly and breaking free from this hard shell you’ve been trapped in. The metaphors are endless, really. It’s just a serious song about embracing the pain and change of life and letting the feeling of freedom be your focus.
4. “Old Friend, New Face”
I think the production of “Old Friend, New Face” is so spot-on to the era I often reference and music I grew up on. It has this certain nostalgic element that’s so special to me, it’s hard to describe. It’s one of those songs I had to really make sure didn’t exist already because it just struck that memory nerve. Lyrically, it’s a song about watching someone you know so well change completely and how that can be so unsettling, but you have no control over it. You just kind of have to ignore it and move on to your own issues (which everyone definitely has).
5. “What People Really Do”
My music tends to be coined as very “uplifting,” but almost all of my lyrics are pretty sarcastic and direct. “What People Really Do” is meant to feel sarcastic and tongue-in-cheek, but also to remind the listener how much time on the planet is collectively wasted on pointless things. I love to make songs that have a paradox of emotions that tell both sides of a story both lyrically and musically, and I think this song does that well.
6. “Nothing Ever Does”
“Nothing Ever Does” is about having a panic attack. Over the past two years, I was going through a season where I would have them pretty often. It’s a really vulnerable song about the ideas of a panic attack and the unfortunate irony of having them as an artist—“If I wait for the noise to die down and go home then I lose where the source of it is and I need it” is such a strong lyric to me. It’s that common artistic feeling of needing chaos in your life for writing material. It’s a messed up headspace that I’m thankfully currently out of. It’s also a musically ironic song, because in a panic attack you can feel the existential weight of how nothing ever lasts, but the song is essentially just one chord. It shows that our mind can be so separated from our reality.
7. “This Feeling”
“This Feeling” is a song I wrote as my younger self to my current self. Asking myself how I became so complacent with living my dream, and how I let stress dictate my navigation through it rather than the joy of doing what I love. It's a sobering song that roots me back in what got me started with music in the first place—just loving making it.
8. “Weatherman”
I love “Weatherman” so much, I think it’s so sick. It’s about how we act as if with science and patterns we can predict the future, but that’s just utterly impossible. Life is just hanging on by a constant thread, and I wanted the song to musically represent that feeling. The song almost feels like an exciting natural disaster, if that makes any sense.
9. “Silver Lining”
“Silver Lining” is the only true love song on the record. It’s about falling in love with someone in your dream, and not wanting to wake up even if that means your reality will be left behind you. In a lot of ways, I feel like that’s what true love is; like a paradigm shift of reality.
10. “Broken Bone”
“Broken Bone” is a pretty serious song, lyrically. It feels so intense and existential and holistic to me about that eager search for purpose and meaning in life. It was the perfect song to end the record with and to close the chapter of life I am currently in.
