Vancouver songwriter Jillian Lake is gearing up to release her debut full-length, and having already shared lead single "Oliver," Exclaim! has the premiere of a lyric video for the second single, "Bleed Baby Bleed."
The song is a melancholic ballad anchored by tender acoustic fingerpicking and soft vocal inflections. It begins sparsely, but gradually swells with atmospheric textures and poignant horns. The subtly ornate arrangement bares some traces of producer Jordan Klassen's own baroque folk leanings.
The accompanying lyric video was made by Lake alongside Evangeline Belzile, and it has the scratchy VHS quality of a '90s home movie.
Lake explained the song with a statement:
When I write music, it's usually deeply personal, but then my hope is that it transforms into something that then becomes personal to the listener, and not about me at all anymore. "Bleed Baby Bleed," to me, is a song about everyone's little vices, or vessels of distraction. When things feel so chaotic that you are just desperate to feel anything, even if it's pain or anger or sadness. I wrote it at a time when I was in disarray and everything I was doing seemed so redundant. I was moving and flailing but really hadn't gotten anywhere at all. I was standing still in the same place that I started, or even backwards from there. But I wanted to move, I wanted the things I did to be impactful. "Bleed Baby Bleed," however, is about that sweet spot of ignorance before the realization — when I didn't want to hear anything or see anything, I just wanted to close my eyes and spin. It's not necessarily meant to be a sad song — but rather about learning to welcome all feelings. When you stop fighting and running, emotion can be so powerful in teaching and healing. (God that sounds so hippy-dippy-floo-foo, but to be honest I sorta kinda love that shit.)
Anyways, even writing this now, I don't think I had realized that's what the song meant to me until it was down in words right here. It keeps evolving and changing its meaning, which is why I love music.
Check out the premiere of the "Bleed Baby Bleed" video below. Lake's album is due out in the late summer.
The song is a melancholic ballad anchored by tender acoustic fingerpicking and soft vocal inflections. It begins sparsely, but gradually swells with atmospheric textures and poignant horns. The subtly ornate arrangement bares some traces of producer Jordan Klassen's own baroque folk leanings.
The accompanying lyric video was made by Lake alongside Evangeline Belzile, and it has the scratchy VHS quality of a '90s home movie.
Lake explained the song with a statement:
When I write music, it's usually deeply personal, but then my hope is that it transforms into something that then becomes personal to the listener, and not about me at all anymore. "Bleed Baby Bleed," to me, is a song about everyone's little vices, or vessels of distraction. When things feel so chaotic that you are just desperate to feel anything, even if it's pain or anger or sadness. I wrote it at a time when I was in disarray and everything I was doing seemed so redundant. I was moving and flailing but really hadn't gotten anywhere at all. I was standing still in the same place that I started, or even backwards from there. But I wanted to move, I wanted the things I did to be impactful. "Bleed Baby Bleed," however, is about that sweet spot of ignorance before the realization — when I didn't want to hear anything or see anything, I just wanted to close my eyes and spin. It's not necessarily meant to be a sad song — but rather about learning to welcome all feelings. When you stop fighting and running, emotion can be so powerful in teaching and healing. (God that sounds so hippy-dippy-floo-foo, but to be honest I sorta kinda love that shit.)
Anyways, even writing this now, I don't think I had realized that's what the song meant to me until it was down in words right here. It keeps evolving and changing its meaning, which is why I love music.
Check out the premiere of the "Bleed Baby Bleed" video below. Lake's album is due out in the late summer.