I was blasting this the other night. My roommate walked in and said, “Oh! This is so pleasant! I like the harmonies!” I couldn’t help grinning.
“Right? But this is a song where she’s contemplating jumping out of the emergency window of the bus if it careens over the bridge it’s crossing.”
“…oh…”
So that’s Every Tear is a Drop of Fear in a nutshell. Wallis constructs beautiful three-part harmonies but, like a sick Anderson Sisters, the lyrics aren’t as sweet as the singing suggests.
It’s definitely worth reading through the lyrics, which Wallis has helpfully posted on Bandcamp. On their own, each song is a poem of crushing isolation and struggling with depression. That makes the songs even more remarkable — with no rhyme structure evident in the words, we go from what seem like diary entries to tightly written pieces reminiscent of early jazz or country girl groups. I feel this tension serves to remind us all of the absurdity of walking around feeling the way we do, but acting as if everything’s fine, even whimsical.
Anna Wallis — Bandcamp