Song You Need: Dehd turn the familiar into something breathtaking on “Window”
The Chicago trio’s new Blue Skies single traverses well-worn lyrical territory, but it’s something special all the same.
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The fifth and final single from Dehd’s forthcoming record Blue Skies, out this Friday on Fat Possum, starts with a simple premise. “There’s a whole in my window,” Emily Kempf begins, treading well-worn lyrical territory. “I was wondering how the rain was gettin’ in/Was it from all this cryin’/Or was it from heaven?”
We’ve heard this all before — and yet her smokey alto still drags us in, forces us to bear witness as she stretches her words past their breaking points, shattering them into pieces of pure melody. Beneath Kempf's vocal, Eric McGrady taps out a brutally simple rhythm and Jason Balla’s guitar shuffles mournfully.
Through the track’s titular window, we watch the shrapnel of an imploding relationship fly in every direction. It's only later, as the smoke begins to clear, that Kempf implores us to look up — to see that the sky has turned the most breathtaking shade of blue.