With the first single from Sour Widow’s follow-up to 2020’s self-titled EP proving toned down from that record’s grungy ebbs and flows, the second track off Crossing Over doubles up on that sense of calm, lyrically honing in on the after effects of grief as the instrumental echoes the abrupt shifts in mood. Before hitting a memorable climax shortly before the end of the six-minute track, “Bathroom Stall” flirts with the kinds of emotional swells that make Big Thief a band of the moment, songwriter Maia Sinaiko going so far as to match that group’s heavy, experiential lyricism.
“This song is about a relationship I had with someone who struggled with addiction, who very tragically passed away three years ago while we were together,” Sinaiko explains. “It’s about some moments we shared, and how it feels to walk around carrying that person and those experiences with me while the world stays normal. I wrote the song because I wanted to preserve and document what happened to me, to write out the scary stuff and just let it sit there forever.
“I think it’s funny that it’s called ‘Bathroom Stall,'” they continue, “and that it has that image in it; the song goes from heavy and dark to ordinary and totally pedestrian in a sentence, which feels absurd. And that’s kind of what it’s like to grieve. That’s kind of what’s hard to explain about grief, how absurd it is. Part of you goes to a different planet and part of you stays walking around like an alien on Earth, going to the bathroom and looking at the moon and shit.”
The track arrives with a video depicting the band’s bizarrely abstract reading of the lyrics, with all three members masking up—depending on their individual interpretations of the phrase—ahead of the clip’s near horror movie-esque climax.
Watch the visual below, and pre-order Crossing Over here.
