Grizzly Bear Annotate Their Catalog on Genius
Grizzly Bear are the latest artists to add annotations to their lyrics on Genius. Today, the site has posted Ed Droste and Daniel Rossen’s comments on several Grizzly Bear songs, including “Two Weeks”, “Knife”, “Sleeping Ute”, “While You Wait for the Others”, and many more. Find Rossen’s annotations here and Droste’s here. Here’s a few highlights:
Droste on “Knife”:
“I WANT YOU TO KNOW, WHEN I LOOK IN YOUR EYES”
It is me being the asshole. I am talking about lying straight to your face, looking in your eyes, lying, cheating, and then stabbing you in the back. People say, ‘It’s such a romantic song.’ It’s not, really, but I welcome that interpretation.
Rossen on “While You Wait for the Others”:
Here, I am playing a character for the fun of it, an exaggerated version of myself at my most ornery. The first lines came about spontaneously and there wasn’t much intention really other than to write lines that fit the character.
Droste on “Two Weeks”:
“TAKE YOUR TIME”
“Take your time” is not sarcastic — it’s serious. Slow down, take your time. It is about reassuring someone that you are with, telling them that you are going to be there even though you are both bored of it. Would you just sometimes take your time, would you make it easy, can you just not stress?
“ROUTINE MALAISE”
I think we all relate to the concept of routine malaise. Everyone experiences it at some point. This song makes people say things like “I want to get married to that!” or “It’s so romantic!” but it’s actually about the disintegration of a relationship.
Droste on “Fix It”:
“COME AGAIN”
We’re four guys singing songs, but I don’t really think the other three want to sing about cum shots. They probably wouldn’t be opposed, because they are pretty chill, but still. There is this mantra of “Come again all over me, I swear I’ll change, just wait and see.” I think a lot of people thought, “Come back to me,” when they heard it and they didn’t really think about it. But if you read it, it is pretty self-explanatory.
Read all of their annotations here and here.
Watch Grizzly Bear play “Fix It” for Pitchfork.tv:
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