Whenever there’s a feeling you can’t shake, it often feels as if you have a cloud hanging over your head. This free floating anxiety follows you, feeds off your angst and grows stronger the longer it’s around. Finally, you decide to face its source and wait for the deluge to follow. On their latest single, “In The Morning (Song For Us),” indie rockers Brother Swan are watching the storm that will precipitate a parting of the ways.
While much of the dreamy style of their debut single, “Good Luck Baby,” remains, Brother Swan ushers in this track with a slight hustling pace. Mind you, it’s not a sprint, but a moderate stride that takes you on a walk through the haze this time around. It’s your guide through what turns out to be a foggy layer of contemplation that lifts to reveal a series of stark realizations. In tandem, lead singer Chris Matthews’ reflective vocals keep this track grounded through the tactical use of a shimmery filter that lets the light of day in to illuminate what was previously ignored.
Central to this track is a relationship in which both of its partners are diverging onto different paths. From passing each other like “ghosts in backyards” to being rendered “comatose with the lights off,” there’s a fading resemblance of what was. As this song ventures through the darkest night of introspection, it emerges on a new day in which the end stages of a relationship have begun to dawn on you. After calling out “see you in the morning” and “see you when the light comes in,” the exit sign shines brightly with directions of “onto to the next one.” By the end, going your separate ways was written as plain as day.
In terms of relationship enders, “In The Morning (Song For Us)” is not as much about where did we go wrong, but instead it’s more like we saw this coming and we let nature take its course. Typically, these songs are loaded with acrimony, but Brother Swan chose to leave gracefully. While sad on the surface, it is a mature uncoupling rather than a messy divorce.
Written by Travis Boyer
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