There’s so much tragedy in the world right now but we have to take a couple of small wins where we can: This week truly seems blessed by the queer music gods. The last three days have seen the release of new music videos and singles from Japanese Breakfast and Lucy Dacus for tracks off their highly-anticipated spring releases. Sharon Van Etten also put out a new music video and single this week but, somehow, she’s actually straight which means I won’t fully go into detail on that here.
The lyrics of the new Japanese Breakfast single “Orlando In Love” — the title of which was inspired by the Renaissance poem “Orlando Innamorato” by Matteo Maria Boiardo — tell the story of a man who lives by the sea in a Winnebago and is eventually called to his death by a siren who seduces him through her song. The song is the first single the band has released off their new, 10-track album For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women), which is due to arrive on March 21. The album follows a few years of both musical and literary success for the band and their lead singer, Michelle Zauner, including the release of the band’s critically acclaimed 2021 album Jubilee and the success of Zauner’s incredible memoir, Crying In H Mart.
The track itself successfully balances the delicate strut of acoustic guitar, lilting violins, and leading upright bass with the unique sweetness of Zauner’s voice floating just above it all. The story of the song is an interesting meditation on the consequences of our desires and what happens when we let our loneliness get the better of us. This is a more universalized reading of the track’s messages, but Zauner has said that the album is “largely about people, often men, who find themselves seduced by temptation and are duly punished for it.” The “Orlando In Love” music video follows closely along the narration of the song, though it takes the setting of a seaside RV to what appears to be a 17th or 18th century seaside town. Zauner plays the titular role of Orlando, a cooped-up friar writing poetry in his home one evening who hears the faint song of a woman arising out of a seashell from the sea. It’s not shown explicitly, but it’s implied that the friar doesn’t make it back home that night.
Strangely, Dacus’s new video traffics in similar aesthetics, but the lyrics couldn’t be further from Zauner’s thematically. Her new single, “Ankles,” is an electric, sensual celebration of spending the evening and morning with someone you’re really into. The speaker in the lyrics is practically begging their partner to stop thinking so much and get down to touching each other until they fall asleep together. Along with a more somber track, “Limerence,” “Ankles” is the first release off Dacus’s forthcoming 12-track album, Forever Is A Feeling, set for release on March 28. Similar to Zauner, Dacus’s new album is arriving on the coattails of a string of successes: her publicly-lauded 2021 solo album Home Video and her work with her band boygenius on the Grammy-winning 2023 album The Record.
In Dacus’s signature style, “Ankles” begins with an introduction from some bass-heavy violin chords before Dacus’s steady, smoky voice comes in to take us with it on the journey to the chorus and crescendo of the song. Along the way, her voice and the violin are joined by some light percussion and an interesting electric guitar arrangement that sounds similar to a toy piano. At the chorus, Dacus sings to her partner with conviction and self-assuredness: “Pull me by the ankles to the edge of the bed / And take me like you do in your dreams / I’m not gonna stop you / I’m not gonna stop you this time, baby / I want you to show me what you mean.”
As I mentioned, the “Ankles” video features some similar imagery as Zauner’s by way of the character Dacus plays in the video. Here, Dacus is the painting of a 17th or 18th century Parisian noblewoman who comes to life at the museum where the painting is housed. She seemingly escapes for a night of debauchery, and we catch up with Dacus’s noblewoman as she’s caught the morning after by a museum security guard, played with wonderful finesse and subtlety by Bottoms’ Havana Rose Liu. The rest of the video takes us with them on their trip from where Dacus’s noblewoman spent the night back to the museum. As they’re making their trip, the affection between the two women grows, but in the end, they both know Dacus’s noblewoman doesn’t belong in this world, and she makes her return with Liu’s security guard continuing to watch over her.
Sadly, we’re going to have to wait a little longer to hear the rest of what Zauner, Dacus, and their respective bandmates have cooked up for us. But if these singles and videos are any indication of what’s in store for us on their new albums and for the rest of the queer releases this year, I think we have a lot to be excited about.
