This World—Afraid
I did not enter this world afraid—and I refuse to leave it this way
I’m afraid to find you wanting. I’m afraid to let you be. I’m afraid to need somebody—or to let someone need me.
And, I mean, there are a few ways you can give consideration to fear. Like, the idea of it, Or, rather, what it means, or might mean, to you. Or for you.
Because there are these more abstract things—larger notions. Fear of spiders. Fear of heights. Situations, or circumstances, that, when we find ourselves within them, or adjacent to them, we are uneasy.
And there are notions that, I guess, are not as large or are less abstract, if that makes sense. Things that are, I think, best described as sources of anxiety. We spiral and we worry, but it is w/r/t an unknown. A “what if.” What if a difficult conversation that has to be had with a spouse, or partner, or loved one, goes poorly. What if there is a specific and sudden illness that befalls a companion animal in the home, and they require difficult-to-obtain, emergent veterinary care?
This thing—it hasn’t happened yet. It might not happen at all. But what if it does. What then.
And that is, of course, homing in on a kind of fear that is inherently more personal, or insular. And I guess what I am thinking about, with my own experiences, especially as of late, with the idea of fear, is experiencing a different kind of “what if.” Because it is much less about trepidation, or anxiety, over what could occur but has not—rather, it is the fear that what is occurring simply may not end.
I did not enter this world afraid. But, I am afraid, and I have confessed as much, that the way I feel now is how I am always going to feel. That it is always going to be like this.
The idea of a refusal, or the act of refusal, is something that I had not given much consideration to until a few years ago—specifically, within the intersection between refusal and mortality. We refuse, then, to give up entirely, on the time we find ourselves with. However long that is. And within that time, we refuse to give in, or to be restrained.
I did not enter this world afraid.
I am always thinking of the intersection between refusal and mortality.
I am afraid that I am always going to feel like this.
*
Something I often marvel at, in terms of contemporary popular music, is the way an artist grows, or evolves, from album to album. This growth, or the continued development of their sound, or aesthetic, or whatever you wish to call it, is just endlessly compelling to hear. And it is admirable. Isn’t it. To continue to push yourself within your craft. Regardless of whether you are a musician. Or a writer. Or a filmmaker. It isn’t easy. But the results of real growth—intentional, and carefully fostered, are often remarkable to behold.
And I suppose I am often thinking about the idea of growth. Within the art that you make, yes. But within yourself, also. Who you are. How you got where you are, in this moment. Where you wish to go from here. That, too, is not easy. Growing as a person. There is effort involved. Herculean at times. A kind of discipline is required to keep investing in yourself—in ways both big and small.
I am certainly not the first person to refer to it as this, but a few years ago, I started framing the notion of self-improvement, or self-discovery, as putting in “The Work.” But that work never ends, really. We keep growing. The ways we challenge ourselves. The way others may challenge us.
And I guess I tell you all of that to tell you this. That Jenn Wasner’s work as Flock of Dimes, since the project’s earliest days in 2011, has been one of very intentional and carefully fostered growth.
It is kind of a joke now, at this point, but even within the joke, there are still slivers of truth to the expression “we contain multitudes.” Or that there is a multitudinous nature to all of us. I give consideration to that idea a lot. Maybe you do, as well. The way that we are multifaceted. Not just in what we appreciate, or consume, or find to be genuinely interesting or compelling. But in who we are, as individuals. And in who we are within our relationship or our connection to others, and how we try to have a clearer understanding of who we are within relation to ourselves.
This idea was, in a sense, at the core of Wasner’s second full-length album, released as Flock of Dimes—2021’s Head of Roses. But there is of course more to the album than that. Deeply resonant, thoughtful, and unabashedly personal, it both was and was not a product of the pandemic, as well as a breakup album. The slow, creeping isolation and dread from the year prior had given her the time, and space, to musically work through the end of a long-term relationship.
In that, though, Wasner unpacked the notion of duality. And how challenging it can be to find the balance within us that is so often required, or at times, demanded.
The multitudes we contain.
Who we are to another. Who are we to ourselves.
The musical growth Wasner has displayed with Flock of Dimes, since the first single she released under the name—the glitchy, cavernous “Prison Bride,” has felt surprising at times, yes, but has also felt natural, or inevitable, she would not outgrow, exactly, but continue to grow. A departure, at least originally, from her work as the singer and guitarist for the beloved indie rock duo Wye Oak, Flock of Dimes, in the earliest singles released under the name, were much more insular and icy, with Wasner heavily incorporating electronic textures within her arrangements.
You can hear that, still, in her debut full-length from the project, If You See Me, Say Yes, from 2016, and you could still hear bits of it five years later, on Head of Roses. You can hear echoes of it still, today, on Wasner’s stunning and harrowing, and slowly gestating, return to the project—the recently released The Life You Save. Though the icy, insular, electronic textures are no longer at the center of Flock of Dimes. Working now closely with multi-instrumentalist Alan Good Parker, the album incorporates gentler, and warmer elements—folksier and twangier at times with the presence of a mandolin, acoustic guitar, and the mournful pedal and lap steel.
There is also a ferocity, still. Very present in certain moments on Head of Roses, there is still a seething, searing edge that rushes towards the top throughout The Life You Save.
Sonically, the growth, or evolution, has been intentional and careful, and throughout The Life You Save’s dozen tracks, it feels like a culmination, creating a dynamic underscore to Wasner’s extraordinarily personal and often revealing lyricism.
Wasner has always been personal and revealing—there are phrase turns throughout her career that have haunted me. In her work with Wye Oak, I am remiss to refer to there being an abstraction to her writing. If anything, I would say that it was personal, or personally reflective, but written in such a way that she didn’t play her hand entirely. In how she has grown as a writer, she still will play things close, but not as close, and perhaps this is because Flock of Dimes is, regardless of whom she is working with in the studio, or performing the songs live with, a solo endeavor for her.
Four years ago, in walking through the fragments of a breakup, she was revelatory and unflinchingly honest in her depictions on Head of Roses. I guess it should not be a surprise to learn that, in returning to Flock of Dimes, and in writing the material for The Life You Save, Wasner holds little if anything back. There is, of course, a catharsis, or exhalation of relief, I think, for her to be this personally frank in her writing here. There is a real bravery—or, rather, a fearlessness, I think, in just how extraordinarily revealing and personal her observations about both herself, and others, from start to finish—personal, and revealing in a way that could, in the hands of a much less capable songwriter, become too much, or inaccessible for certain listeners.
The Life You Save does not run that risk. In just how bold of a statement Wasner makes with it, the album is still full of moments both arresting in their infectiousness and beauty, and is the kind of experience that makes the space for you, meeting you wherever you are when you arrive at it.
*
The growth, or evolution, of Wasner and the work she wishes to release as Flock of Dimes, and the way the different sounds, or textures, she has adopted over time, converge on The Life You Save, create something that is remarkable in its dynamism.
A word, or a descriptor, rather, that I found myself writing down more than once while listening to The Life You Save with analytical ears, was “soulful.” Wasner’s voice, alone, has always been extremely soulful. It isn’t “deep,” but there is a depth, or richness that she carries it, and it has always had a smokier quality to it. Maybe it comes with time, and growth, but she, in many of these songs, sounds much more confident or at least aware of her voice’s capabilities, in how she uses it and the places she wishes to take it.
But there is a soulfulness, or a “groove,” as it were, to a lot of arranging on The Life You Save. Not that it isn’t apparent in the earlier songs on the record—Wasner effortlessly slides into a swaying, slow-moving groove on the album’s smoldering, sorrowful opening track, “Afraid,” but this penchant for soulfulness does ripple up to the surface quickly on the album’s fourth track, “Defeat.”
I am remiss to refer to The Life You Save as a hopeless album, because that is, I don’t think, Wasner’s intention with this. Even though it ends on a very stark, inward turned note, in the long, tumultuous journey depicted throughout, of regaining one’s sense of self, and pushing forward with growth, and “The Work,” there are these moments that do, at least in how they sound, or are presented, arrive as flashes of optimism or hope.
Despite the title, “Defeat” is one of those moments—where there is this kind of optimism, or sliver of hope that Wasner is working with from the moment it begins.
In how it is structured, it is a slight callback to the earlier, more electro-infused days of Flock of Dimes, as “Defeat” slowly fades in with Wasner’s voice, wordlessly singing, layered and manipulated. There is an eeriness to it, sure, but in how it arrives, and how she carries the notes, holding them and then letting them rise and descend, there is something ultimately promising, or hopeful about it—becoming something akin to a musical sunrise.
There is a pause, then, before the instrumentation begins, and “Defeat” then does feel akin to the kind of converged aesthetic that Wasner was working from on If You See Me, Say Yes—glitchy and skittering, with a sense of warmth and a little whimsy. Following this introduction, we hear the welcoming tones of a synthesizer, and the shuffling of programmed, crunchy percussive elements. Within a minute, all of the elements do really surge together, and begin to swirl—these textural components, as well as the introduction of more organic elements, like Wasner’s acoustic guitar string plucks, glistening, and finding their way into the fabric of the song.
Midway through, as an instrumental bridge, Wasner welcomes in a buzzy, searing electric guitar solo that is similar—perhaps intentionally—to the soloing found on the slow-burning, chugging, melancholic song from Head of Roses, “Price of Blue.” And, I guess, if we are continuing, as analytical listeners, to look for connectivity between songs, or albums, there is another moment in “Defeat” that feels intertwined with “Price of Blue.”
“Price of Blue” begins, after the distorted and noisy guitar solo recedes, with Wasner howling, “I’m waking up from a dream—I can feel, but I can’t see. I’m suffocating the spark of divine you made in me.” Here, on “Defeat,” Wasner references dreams twice. Once in the second verse, when she sings, “I play it back—I say I’m free. Still wake up in another man’s dream. I can’t remember what it was supposed to mean, and then later on, towards the song’s conclusion. “So this is how it feels to be living inside of a dream—trying to build a world between the things I say, and what you think they mean.”
Given the sensitive and personal nature of both Head of Roses and the material included on The Life You Save, it should not come as a surprise that Wasner, in her writing, is excellent at depicting domestic scenes, however large or small. Here, on “Defeat,” there is a line that speaks volumes—arresting in how resonant it is as it conveys something about the human condition, and our dynamics with others.
“When things are bad between us, it is hard to face the day. When things are feeling easy, it is hard, in a different sort of way.”
Wasner shifts the album’s dynamism throughout this collection, and moves into a more organic, and noisier, or at least slightly more volatile athletic on the second half on another standout, “Pride.”
And there are certain hallmarks of Jenn Wasner—whether it be her work as Flock of Dimes, or fronting Wye Oak. There is her voice, yes. Which is of course unmistakable. But there are certain guitar tones that she often favors, or finds ways to incorporate, which is what you hear at the top of “Pride.” Blended in with the strum of the acoustic guitar, there is a heavily effected electric guitar, quivering or warbling slightly as it also shimmers, creating a truly textured introduction, and makes way for the thudding of the drum beat, and the strong surges of bass notes to come in alongside her vocals—her voice here is also effected, run through distortion that gives it just a little bit of a rough edge, or crunch.
Something that I noticed about The Life You Save, after spending a lot of time with it, is that Wasner doesn’t exactly forego the standard songwriting structure of a verse, a chorus, and another verse, but she also does not exactly feel the need to fit her words into such rigid confines. I say this because there is, throughout the album, an unrelenting nature to how the songs and these narratives unfold. “Pride” is one of those places. And I mean, there are places where she pauses the delivery of the lyrics—there is an instrumental break that features the arrival of a third guitar track, followed by the mournful pulls of the pedal steel, but the rhythm never ceases—the momentum just keeps churning forward with this smoldering sense of urgency and unrest.
Wasner’s writing on “Pride” is one of the more inward turns that the album takes—bordering on self-effacing, it does find her reflecting on herself with a frank bleakness, turning stark, observational phrases that linger well after the song is over, and doing so with a kind of poetic ambiguity—it is also here where she sings the album’s titular phrase, in the second half of the song. “I know we make our own arrangements,” she seethes. “The life you save is only one.”
“You wouldn’t trust me if you knew how hard I tried,” Wasner resigns herself to, as the song comes towards its conclusion. “Pride will be my downfall every time.”
*
And there are, of course, the songs on any album, that lend themselves to this kind of exhaustive analysis. The songs that are the most emotionally charged or the most evocative. The ones where I catch the reflections of myself, unflattering or otherwise, in, when I sit down to listen. And those are the ones I feel I always have the most to reflect on, as I continue to write myself further and further into my thoughts on the album in question.
Not every song asks for this. Or, perhaps, not every song on an album speaks to me in this way. Is not this resonant or poignant for me, personally.
Regardless of how much of an attachment I form to specific songs on an album, or how much I feel like I have to say in unpacking the songwriting, or the instrumentation, there are other moments, elsewhere, that I often wish to draw attention to—songs that surprise me in some way. “Instead of Calling,” placed within the final third of The Life You Save, is one of those songs, and the surprise comes in just how dextrous and impressive it is, and how it handles the ever-shifting tones and melodies that swirl around.
There is a folksier slant, or a country and western tinge to a handful of the tunes on The Life You Save—the album’s first single, “Long After Midnight¹,” even in how bitter and remorseful the lyrics are, shuffles along jauntily with mostly acoustic instrumentation. “Instead of Calling” is similar, at least at first, in the rootsier, more acoustic sounds that it is built around, with breezy, gentle percussion, and an infectious, brief melody flicked out on the strings of the acoustic guitar.
The surprise, though, is the directions Wasner takes “Instead of Calling”—the quick dip into slight dissonance, or unease, and then the equally quick ascension into a soothing resolution before the song returns to the steady, folksier aesthetic it begins with.
I have seen Jenn Wasner perform three times—twice with Wye Oak, and once in a very intimate setting as Flock of Dimes, at a house show in St. Paul, Minnesota, in May of 2024. She has been outspoken about how difficult it is to tour, and tour successfully, with this solo project, and has, for the last few years, taken to traveling across the country, playing in various homes, to attentive and polite crowds of roughly 30 to 40 people.
In St. Paul, on an overcast Saturday evening, Wasner, accompanied by Good Parker on the pedal steel and electric guitar, performed mostly material from Head of Roses, but in introducing the one-off single, “Pure Love,” from 2022, she told an anecdote about how much she appreciates when a song is so well written and infectious in its melody, that it distracts from how bleak, or sad, the lyrics might be. This is, of course, not a new technique or device used in songwriting, but it is something that is still wildly effective and admirable—and something that she surprised herself with, by doing that very thing on “Pure Love,” which was much more noticeable to the audience when the song was stripped of its glistening, pop music trappings, performed in a much slower and stripped down arrangement.
I tell you all of that to say that “Instead of Calling” repeats this trick, to the extent that it can, especially in these shifts in the melody—they are stunning, and the way Wasner keeps the song moving sounds absolutely effortless. And in just how beautiful this is, and in the kind of infectious nature of the progression of strings on the acoustic guitar that flutters almost throughout the entire song, it does disguise how sorrowful some of the writing is.
“Instead of wondering, I’d like to know how much hurt would it take for you to let it go,” Wasner asks towards the end of the song, then shifts her voice into a space that is layered with a hint of dissonance. “I hide from my truth, as I hide in my song.”
And it is this shifting toward something surprising, and penchant for genuinely interesting and surprising melodies, that Wasner also uses earlier on in the album, on its stunning, shimmering second track, “Keep Me In The Dark,” which is truly amongst its finest moments.
And, if I may, or if you will allow it, I would like to talk about how The Life You Save is sequenced—done so with a tangible kind of meticulousness and thoughtfulness. And in how I write, analyze, and write about contemporary popular music, I will often refer to an album being bookended in a certain way—anecdotally, I find an album’s finest or most resonant moments are placed at the top and bottom.
Here, though, it is more than just a well-executed opening and closing—The Life You Save continues to astound with its second track, as well as the penultimate moment, “River in My Arms.”
“River in My Arms” is one of the places on the album where the elements do not exactly come rushing together, but there is an immediacy to how all of the instruments find their way into the structure of the song, swirling together into something that is, in this instance, both beautiful and somber. The song opens with the intimate plucking of an acoustic guitar, and is then soon joined by gentle, tumbling percussion, the surging of the bass, and the wet, cavernous thunks of an effected electric guitar—the somberness sustained from both the melancholic progression on the acoustic guitar, which is joined by small, haunting flourishes of the piano.
Musically, and how that works to compliment the sentiments of Wasner’s lyricism and the narrative, “River in My Arms” operates from a place of subtle tension and release, which is fascinating to watch unfold, because when it arrives at the chorus, there is this moment where all of the sounds are quickly, and briefly, played in reverse, before it spits itself back out, and has been allowed to expand, just a little, in scope, giving things a little more room to breathe, as things glisten and shimmer, slowly swirling around with a sadness that is palpable.
The themes that runs throughout The Life You Save are ones of loss, and of regret, or remorse. These are not in every song, but when Wasner does incorporate them, she does so in a way where it can be a little overwhelming—the sensation that she creates with this place she is writing from. “River in My Arms” is one of the songs where these notions are handled both gently and beautiful—resulting in something that does truly take your breath away.
The album, taken as a whole, is of course about a lot of things—all of them extraordinarily personal and emotionally charged. The journey Wasner takes is one that does work towards a kind of letting go, or an acceptance, or perhaps just a resignation of the circumstances built into the narrative. “The Work” of course never ends, really. What we keep investing and reinvesting in ourselves, as we are able, if we are able. “The Work,” or a kind of self-improvement, or self-discovery, is never easy and I think there is no real end to it, or clear resolution.
And that is how the album ends. No easy answers. Only difficult questions. But if you are looking for any kind of resolve, or reluctant acceptance, you can find it in “River in My Arms.” It is touching, and as the lyricism is in myriad places on the album, it is extremely difficult to hear in its unabashed frankness. “I guess it comes as no surprise—still my heart withers every time,” Wasner confesses early in the song. “I’ll have to hold it—I’ll have to keep my hope alive.”
Or, later, in an aside in the second verse. “I get you on the phone again—I never know which one I’ll get.”
The real breathtaking moment comes from the phrases turned in the chorus. “And I can’t tell you it’s alright but it’s alright with me. I can only hold you like a tree holds to its leaves.”
Because there is a horrible, exhaustive desperation, and immediacy to this image, which she doubles down on in the titular phrase. “I will hold you like a river in my arms.”
And there is a connective nature to The Life You Save. Of course there is. It is an album hinged on a concept. Or an idea. Songs that were all written with the intention of telling the story, however difficult it might be in the end. But there are these slight connective moments between songs, as well, which are utterly fascinating to hear, especially when listening to the record closely, and with intention.
Sonically, for as gentle and swirling as “River in My Arms” is, it does swallow itself into not dissonance, but an icy, synthetic texture that eerily brings it to its conclusion. From there, the hiss that comes from the silence of a room fades in, and we are brought seamlessly into the devastating closing track.
This technique appears at the top of the album as well, in the short space created between the swaying, unrelenting opening track, and mission statement for The Life You Save, and the swooning, surprising second track, “Keep Me in The Dark.” These are of course small things and details that are, perhaps, unimportant to every listener, but when experiencing the album as a whole, create these little moments of intimacy there are impossible to forget.
“Keep Me In The Dark,” like the way the album’s opening track is assembled, and as a number of the other songs on the album are, is relentless. It isn’t aggressive, though. Far from it. The song is incredibly delicate—lilting forward on the hushed rhythm of a shaker and a tap of the snare drum. And in how delicate it is, “Keep Me” also shimmers, and glistens courtesy of the acoustic guitar—both the slight warbled, chorus effect on it, as well as the way the strings are intricately plucked, creating something a little ornate.
In its unrelenting nature, it does also settle into a groove almost immediately—for an album that is as heartbreaking as The Life You Save is, there are so many places where Wasner smartly constructs an arrangement that demands you nod your head along with the rhythm, and even with the real sense of restraint “Keep Me In The Dark” has—a kind of tension it shuffles itself along on, this is one of those moments where are compelled by the song’s slinking nature.
This tension then lifts as the song ascends just the slightest during the chorus—there is kind of a rush when it happens, and a shift, where the heavy, somber tone up to that point recedes a little through the arrival of this genuinely interesting, and catchy, melody.
This is the first instance on The Life You Save where I noticed the very soulful elements to Wasner’s voice. You can hear it right away, in how she sings the opening line, and you continue to notice it within the boldness and the layering of her vocals when she belts out the titular phrase in the chorus.
Nearly every song on The Life You Save is, in some way, revealing—though there are some that are much more pertinent or reveal more portions of the album’s central narrative. “Keep Me In The Dark” is more of an inward turn for Wasner. It is a song that seemingly takes place from a want, or desire for something that is just out of reach—which results in a startling juxtaposition between the gentle, steady nature of the instrumentation, and this emergent yearning.
“If I dance just for the thrill of it will the future look kindly on me,” Wasner asks, in the opening line. “I’ve spent too many years with their voice on my tongue—staring back at he habit while it’s staring at me.”
“Still can’t understand why I want what I want. Why I say what I say,” she continues. “If I’m good, or I’m not. But if I fall into the arms of it will another door open for me?”
“You can try to keep me in the dark,” Wasner exclaims in the chorus. “You can lie and say you like the cold and the weather. Turn me around—you see it in me now. I see it in myself again.”
She grows more introspective, and personal still, in what is depicted in the second verse. “If I act like I’m above it will my body catch up to my mind? I’ve said all of the things that I need to say. But I’m leaving the meaning behind,” she explains before adding, and ending, on a line delivered with a visceral sense of sorrow. “So I’m dying—trying but I’m getting it wrong, all the meaning of living and the purpose of song. But I never wanted to hurt anyone.”
However sorrowful, though, it is one of the songs on The Life You Save that claws its way to whatever shred of hope it can cling to in the repetition of the chorus, ending on a kind of assurance. “You see it in me now. I see it in myself again.”
*
I did not enter this world afraid—and I refuse to leave it this way
My best friend turned 36 recently and ahead of her birthday, she wrote an essay about a handful of fears, or anxieties, she was filled with at different points in her life—things that she was certain, when she was younger, she needed to worry about, and could possibly take her out—an envelope of anthrax, a baseball hitting her temple akin to Ashley Judd’s fate in the film Simon Birch, her Achilles tendon being sliced by an assailant waiting under her car in the parking lot of a shopping mall.
None of these things have happened to her, though. She has made it well into adulthood unscathed.
There are of course a few ways you can give consideration to fear. The idea of it. What it means. What it might mean to you. Or for you. Because there are abstract things. Larger notions. Fear of spiders. Of heights. The dark. Storms. Situations or circumstances in which when we find ourselves in them, or adjacent to them, we are uneasy.
There are the things that are not as large, or less abstract. More specific. Sources of anxiety. The “what if”s that we find ourselves ruminating on or spiraling over. What if this difficult conversation that I have to have with someone does not go well. What if my companion animal falls ill suddenly and requires difficult-to-obtain, emergent veterinary care?
The thing. It hasn’t happened. Yet. It might not happen all. What if it does though. What do you do then.
And I mean, this is all homing in on a kind of fear that is inherently much more personal or insular. I am thinking about my own experience as of late with fear. And how it is, I guess, experiencing a different kind of “what if.” It is much less about the trepidation or anxiety over what could occur but has not. It is, rather, the fear that what is occurring will simply not end.
When I was younger—in my early 20s, I was afraid of death. Specifically, dying in my sleep. Perhaps not as irrational as some concerns, but perhaps irrational for my age. I was in good health, I think, at this time. And yet, at night, when I allowed the thoughts to come, I would worry about if this was “it.” My last night. Who would find me. There would be possessions to sift through. Bills that had gone unpaid. Food in the refrigerator had spoiled.
I was afraid of death but there came a point where I no longer felt that way. Because I had stood at the edge of the water and wondered what it would be like to wander in.
I did not enter this world afraid. But, I am afraid, and I have confessed as much, that the way I feel now is how I am always going to feel. That it is always going to be like this.
Until a few years ago I had not given consideration to the idea of refusal. Or to acts of refusal. However big or small. Specifically, I had not thought about the intersection between refusal and mortality. Because we refuse, then, to give up entirely on the time that we find ourselves with, however long that is.
We refuse to give in, or be restrained, by fear.
I am always thinking about this intersection, though. The space between refusal and mortality and the darkness that ultimately forms in the center and the choices we make. Because I am still afraid, every day, that it is always going to feel like this.
In announcing The Life You Save, Wasner opened up, as much as she was comfortable doing, saying this is a record about “addiction, codependency, and trying to learn how to find peace in the face of others’ suffering.”
“The story this record is one that I have shied away from addressing directly because in many ways,” she continued. “I didn’t yet have the perspective I needed to understand that it was also mine to tell. I am so proud of this record—not just because of the songs, but because the fact that it exists, and I am sharing it with you, means that I am further along on my own path towards peace than I ever dreamed I could go.”
“If you see yourself in any part of this short description,” she concluded. “This record is also for you.”
I would contend that The Life You Save is bookended with its finest moments—the songs that are the most emotionally compelling and evocative. “Afraid,” the first song Wasner wrote for the album, serves as a thesis for what is to come and what she wishes to divulge to us as listeners.
“Its arrival marked an obvious and definitive shift,” she reflected when the song was issued as the second advance single. “I knew this was the start to something but I had a long path to walk, and lots left to learn. Along the way, this mantra kept me company—I did not enter this world afraid, and I refuse to leave it this way.”
Wasner calls the song an intention, an incantation, and a prayer. “I accept what has happened but I refuse to let it dictate the outcome of my life,” she said. “This song is a mantra for those who wish to believe that we can transcend the circumstances over which we have no control.”
“Afraid,” as an opening track, and the song that guides you into the world of the album, walks a line between a kind of gentleness in how it sounds—occasionally rising, just enough, really, to push it into swoony, dreamy territory during the chorus. It, also, like many of the other songs Wasner has collected for The Life You Save, is relentless. Again, it is not in an aggressive way by any means. And maybe it is the kind of urgent nature with which Wasner is beginning the narrative, and returning to the mantra, but she never allows herself to rest, at all, between verses.
There is a clattering nature to the percussion, and rhythm of “Afraid,” right from the beginning of the song, with a number of elements, rushing together quickly to create a swirling sensation that is sustained until the very end—the intentionally paced tapping out of the cymbal and the pinging of the snare drum shuffle along, while an atmospheric keyboard weaves its way in and out, with a manipulated field recording of what sounds like children playing outside, ripples through it all.
Additional instrumentation arrives as “Afraid” continues propelling itself forward, with a strummy acoustic guitar sliding in during the second verse, then a rollicking, loose piano in the final third. The whole album is, of course, meticulous in how it sounds and how the sounds are layered, and the precedent is set here at top of the album, just in terms of how many layers there are, how they all swirl together in a kind of haunting, beautiful slow motion, because the song, in its very deliberate but also very unrelenting pace, finds a swaying, swooning kind of feeling, and with ease, keeps that momentum until it winds itself down.
The very delicate nature of the song’s instrumentation, coupled with how it never ceases in its forward movement, serves as a fascinating contrast to the introspection of Wasner’s writing, and the bold statement she makes in the album’s opening moment.
“Afraid” begins, as I suppose it should, with the aforementioned mantra. “I did not enter this world afraid, and I refuse to leave it this way,” Wasner declares, before adding. “I did not enter this world alone. A gasp splitting the silence crying, essence and bone.”
There are songs on The Life You Save that do follow the typical, or anticipated structure of a pop song, in terms of a verse, a chorus, and then another verse, and that the chorus uses repetition of lyrics. One of the things, though, that makes this record something to behold, is the way Wasner disregards that structure completely, or if anything, subverts it, which is what happens on “Afraid.” The chorus, both times it arrives, follows a similar melody, with her voice rising into a much higher register at first, before she pulls it back in, but the lyrics are different each time—again, the song is unrelenting in how it pushes forward with this subtle but immediate nature, as if to say there is really no time for repetition, or any kind of return.
“I had to grow, so I grew,” Wasner explains. “I didn’t mean for it to take me so far gone from you. I made you scared when I cried,” she continues, and again, not spending too much time lingering on the weight of these lyrics, but instead letting them ascend and then gently fall into the swirling groove of the instrumentation. “All I wanted was a witness—but I know that you tried.”
As the song continues moving forward, Wasner begins to open up her reflections just a little more. “I did not enter this world for you,” she confesses. “But I saw if I could carry it—would you carry me too?,” she asks, then a few lines later, returns to the familiar, swooning melody of the chorus. “And I can’t sing to you now—I tried to steal you from your suffering but I didn’t know how,” she laments. “I had to know what to do. I made a shelter for your body, but it wasn’t home for you.”
As the song finds its way to the ending, Wasner returns to the mantra, repeating it, as a means of finding comfort and solace in the very notion of an act of refusal.
“And I refuse to leave it,” she sings four times, her voice rising and falling as the instruments slowly drop out of the arrangement, creating this declarative moment of assurance. Because sometimes it is that assurance, or a reminder, to ourselves, that we require.
That we refuse to give in, or to be restrained, by fear.
I am always thinking about the intersection between refusal and morality. And the space between the two and the darkness that does ultimately form in the center, and the choices that we make.
The assurances we make to ourselves. And to others.
I did not enter this world afraid. But I have confesses as much. That I am still afraid it is always going to feel like this.
*
I’m afraid to find you wanting. I’m afraid to let you be. I’m afraid to need somebody, or let someone need me.
And something that I do really appreciate, and try to notice, or be more aware of, when listening to music, or “sitting down” with an album as to give it exhaustive analysis—something I appreciate is intentionality. I appreciate when there are very subtle, but very intentional and apparent threads that connect one thing, to the next. I appreciate a self-referential song cycle. And I appreciate a very specific, and meticulous kind of method, or technique, of production and engineering.
The Life You Save is, across its dozen tunes, an intersection between the glitchy, jittery synthetic tones that at, one point, the kind of genesis, or at least the conceit of Flock of Dimes, and the myriad organic textures that Wasner has favored in her work fronting Wye Oak (especially in the earliest days of the band), and her growing embracement of the acoustic guitar and folksier, gentler arranging. It works well, and throughout she does find which tone, or aesthetic, serves each song the best.
I guess I tell you all of that to tell you this. Something that, in listening closely, and in an appreciation for the small details of how a song sounds, or an understanding of the atmosphere it is attempting to create, what I appreciate it is when something is very fragile, and very intimate. I use that word a lot when I write about music. A kind of closeness that perhaps feels too honest. Like we are on the cusp of being told a secret from a trusted friend. There is a way to commit that to tape. That feeling. A kind of unflinching truth that sounds like we are in the very room while it is being confessed.
The Life You Save concludes with its most devastating song—I mean it is the kind of song that, of course, is written and performed in such a way that it has to be sequenced at the end of the record. “I Think I’m God” is one of the album’s finest moments, but in being one of its finest moments, it is also the most harrowing—the kind of song that is so intimate, in what it reveals, and how it reveals it, that it knocks the wind out of you.
“I Think I’m God” opens with an exasperated sigh, forming in the space as “River In My Arms” comes to its conclusion, and the hiss, or static of the space this song was recorded in, takes over. And you can hear the creak of the chair that Wasner is sitting in, as she begins slowly strumming her acoustic guitar.—a brief moment, but an honest one, or a very human one, in how intimate, and subtly intense it is.
The instrumentation is extremely sparse on “I Think I’m God.” Wasner is really only accompanied by one other instrument, outside of the acoustic guitar—the chords she strums are pensive, and almost hesitant in a way, as they very loosely construct a rhythm. She is joined by a second string instrument—not a lead guitar, exactly, and not a bass. But something something that is resonant as it plucks and bends out notes that never detract, and if anything, weave their way into the fabric of the song as a means of punctuating, and complementing, while an extremely faint rippling sound comes in, barely audible, after the song’s halfway point, quietly pooling underneath all the layers.
Regardless of whether she is writing for Wye Oak or for herself as Flock of Dimes, Jenn Wasner’s lyricism can be and often is sad or somber. It can be a tone she sustains through an entire song, or it can just be a singular phrase turn that will linger, and honestly haunt you, for years after you’ve first heard it. Admittedly, this darkness that courses through her writing is often well hidden, or at least partially obscured by an infectious melody or dazzling instrumentation. She drops all of that in the skeletal nature of “I Think I’m God.” It sounds bleak, and sorrowful, because it is. And the lyrics—specifically, the way she carries them, really does make it as viscerally and powerfully sad as it is, as she makes these final observations both inward, and out towards the uncertainty ahead.
What makes “I Think I’m God” this stunning is the control and emotion Wasner displays in her voice—allowing it to soar, with a cavernous echo drifting behind it, on the chorus, as she bellows the titular phrase. “I think I’m god—I know I’m not,” she concedes. But, there is this terrible fragility and raw kind of honesty that literally seethes during the verses, like she is either on the verge of tears, attempting to get all of these words out and still keep her composure, or trying to calmly recite them in the moments that come in between gasps and sobs.
“There’s a place that I’ve ben searching for,” she begins, with a weight and hesitancy in her voice. “I do not want to go. For I only want the looking in the eyes of those I know. I’ve been looking for so long that I’ve forgotten what I know,” Wasner continues, her words measured so carefully. “I keep going ’til I’m slowing, because the going feels like home.”
Something that I do appreciate and try to notice when listening to music or “sitting down with an album is intentionality. I appreciate when there are very subtle but intentional and apparent threads that connect one thing to the next. I appreciate a self-referential song cycle. Wasner herself, in speaking about “Afraid,” called it the first song she wrote for this cycle. The opening line of the song is her mantra–I did not enter this world afraid, and I refuse to leave it this way, is not contradicted, exactly, as the album comes to an end, but she does return to the idea of fear, and that regardless of our refusals, fear does remain, or linger.
“I’m afraid to find you wanting—I’m afraid to let you be,” Wasner confesses in the second verse. “I’m afraid to need somebody, or to let someone need me.”
“I’ve been asking the same question since the day that I came to,” she explains in the final verse, and again, completing the cycle, of sorts, in referring back to the idea of entering into this world. “How the beauty, I came through me, so much more than came to you. So I tried to give protection but I could not set you free,” she continues, before arriving at the final, truly devastating and personally difficult line, where one most reconcile, as much at they can, in the face of something where, even with the amount of reflection or growth or “work” that one has put in, there are no easy answers, or real resolve.
“The hurt is your misfortune, but the shame belongs to me.”
*
I did not enter this world afraid. But I am afraid, and I have confessed as much.
And I am always thinking about the intersection between mortality and refusal. The small acts of refusal we find ourselves participating in, perhaps at times, not even realizing it. We’re still here. We keep pushing forward. Despite, sometimes, everything inside telling you not to.
I am always returning to the idea of “The Work.” The effort we put in. Discovery. Growth. How difficult it is to sustain the discipline needed to make changes. The reinvestment we put into ourselves. The investment we wish to make in others.
Oscillating within the space between refusing to live with fear, or in fear, and still understanding that there are things, both large and small, intensely personal or a little larger or more abstract in scope, that do make us afraid, The Life You Save is an enormous statement for Wasner as an artist. In terms of how the songs are meticulously arranged and produced, it finds her growing more and more comfortable and confident in her role not only as a performer, but as a producer as well.
Nearly 15 years after Wasner first released “Prison Bride” as her debut under the Flock of Dimes moniker, the project has grown over time into something that has a much more robust thoughtfulness and graciousness to it—even in the difficult, extraordinarily honest writing and reflections found on The Life You Save, Wasner approaches the narrative with a real sense of care, endlessly trying to write from a place that acknowledges and still wishes, as it is able, to have compassion.
“The Work” seemingly never ends, and we are always trying to improve ourselves or discover about ourselves. The Life You Save is a remarkable observation on that. The space that forms between mortality and refusal. The space that forms between the work we have put in, the comfort or solace we’ve sought, and where we still wish to go.
1 - It feels weird to put this as a footnote, given that “Long After Midnight” was the album’s first single, and with how revealing the lyricism is to the larger narrative. It is a fine song, but it is not a song that really spoke to me, or I found myself connecting with in such a way to include it in the analysis. Just an aside, I guess, to mention that when I saw Jenn Wasner perform at a house show in St. Paul in May of 2024, this was the one new song she played in her set—she was hesitant to say what it was about, exactly, and implied that she was still really working through the circumstances that ultimately shaped a lot of the writing on The Life You Save.
