On September 30, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are at long last returning with their highly-anticipated fifth full-length Cool It Down. We've already heard the gorgeous Perfume Genius-featuring opener "Spitting Off the Edge of the World," and now we get another taste with the disco and soul-inspired "Burning."
In an interview with Apple Music 1's Zane Lowe accompanying the single drop, the band said the song was inspired by Gloria Gaynor's timeless 1978 anthem "I Will Survive," as well as Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons' 1967 song "Beggin'."
"We started it like most of the others on this record, just making demos in my basement, just like jamming, and then editing and editing and exploring," guitarist Nick Zinner explained. "And this one actually started from a piece that I had done as just like an idea starter the month before where that piano thing was just this like element that happened for like seven seconds, like three minutes into this track. And Karen was like, what's that? And then, you know..."
In an Instagram post about the track, Karen O also described how the song was partially inspired by a fire that burned through her NYC apartment when she was 19, destroying many of her belongings but leaving her most cherished items intact. "If the world is on fire I hope the most beloved stay protected and that we do all we can to protect what we cherish most in this life," she wrote. "Burning is a song about that feeling, smoke signals for the soul. Begging to cool it down, just doing it the best we know how."
The song finds the band in glammed-out disco mode, with Karen giving a supercharged vocal performance over some melancholy piano chords and serrated guitar before it explodes into fireworks and strings. There's also a brief moment at the song's beginning that sounds like a nod to the Police's "Roxanne." You can check it out below alongside the Instagram post about the track.
Elsewhere in the band's chat with Lowe, they discuss the making of Cool It Down, saying that the album finds them once again in their "comfort zone" of calamity and intense feelings.
"What do we have to give? What do we have to offer? You know, does the world need us?" Karen O said. "And we certainly need the audience right now, and just have that sort of rapport. Because I think one of the things about Yeah Yeah Yeahs is we just don't shy away from the big emotions and the big feelings and tackling them. And someone's got to do it, right?"
In an interview with Apple Music 1's Zane Lowe accompanying the single drop, the band said the song was inspired by Gloria Gaynor's timeless 1978 anthem "I Will Survive," as well as Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons' 1967 song "Beggin'."
"We started it like most of the others on this record, just making demos in my basement, just like jamming, and then editing and editing and exploring," guitarist Nick Zinner explained. "And this one actually started from a piece that I had done as just like an idea starter the month before where that piano thing was just this like element that happened for like seven seconds, like three minutes into this track. And Karen was like, what's that? And then, you know..."
In an Instagram post about the track, Karen O also described how the song was partially inspired by a fire that burned through her NYC apartment when she was 19, destroying many of her belongings but leaving her most cherished items intact. "If the world is on fire I hope the most beloved stay protected and that we do all we can to protect what we cherish most in this life," she wrote. "Burning is a song about that feeling, smoke signals for the soul. Begging to cool it down, just doing it the best we know how."
The song finds the band in glammed-out disco mode, with Karen giving a supercharged vocal performance over some melancholy piano chords and serrated guitar before it explodes into fireworks and strings. There's also a brief moment at the song's beginning that sounds like a nod to the Police's "Roxanne." You can check it out below alongside the Instagram post about the track.
Elsewhere in the band's chat with Lowe, they discuss the making of Cool It Down, saying that the album finds them once again in their "comfort zone" of calamity and intense feelings.
"What do we have to give? What do we have to offer? You know, does the world need us?" Karen O said. "And we certainly need the audience right now, and just have that sort of rapport. Because I think one of the things about Yeah Yeah Yeahs is we just don't shy away from the big emotions and the big feelings and tackling them. And someone's got to do it, right?"
