Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfield has dropped a new single, “Lilacs,” accompanied by a stunning video. The track is off Crutchfield’s upcoming album Saint Cloud, out March 27th via Merge Records.
Directed by Ashley Connor, the clip features dancer Marlee Grace making her way through a warehouse, eyes on the camera as she pirouettes and stretches across empty chairs. She steps outside in the rain, mouthing the lyrics as the lens catches condensation: “And the lilacs drink the water.”
“Lilacs” is the final song Crutchfield created for Saint Cloud, which she wrote at her piano in Kansas City. She cut lilac flowers from her front yard and dropped them in glass bottles of Topo Chico water, decorating the top of her piano with them. “Lilacs have a longer lifespan if they drink soda water,” she recently joked to Rolling Stone. “A little tip from me to you.”
With lyrics like “I get so angry, baby/at something you might say/I dream about an awful stranger, work my way through the day,” the song tackles the negative and obsessive thoughts Crutchfield was experiencing at the time. “I was just in a bad mood,” she admitted. “Through all of my personal growth and the path that I’ve been on, you have these days where you slip back into bad behavior and patterns of thought. When I wrote that chorus, I was like, ‘All right, we’re going to make this a little bit of a light at the end of the tunnel.’”
“Lilacs” follows the lead single “Fire.” Crutchfield will embark on a spring tour in support of Saint Cloud, kicking off in Detroit on April 10th. She’ll make stops along the East Coast — including two consecutive nights in Brooklyn — before passing through the Southwest on her way to the West Coast. She’ll conclude the trek in Madison, Wisconsin on May 22nd.