Today's Song: Worthitpurchase Weave Dreamy, Delicate Wonders on "Inbetween"

An intimate and delicate release of raw inner tension, Worthitpurchase’s “Inbetween” charts the course from reckoning to acceptance in a song that is as much a personal mantra as it is a cathartic wash of sweet relief.

follow our Today’s Song(s) playlist

Stream: “Inbetween” – Worthitpurchase

All too often, we dwell on aspects of our lives that we have little to no control over. Some people worry about their height, or their hair; for others, it’s their personality, or their age. We are of course entitled to our own anxieties and we can expend as much energy as we want on these woes, but where does it get us and what good does it do, both in the moment and in the long run? Whether it’s permanent or potentially malleable over time, when the subject of our brooding is outside of our control, there’s a wealth of acceptance waiting for us on the other side – as we come to experience, albeit secondhand, in Worthitpurchase’s new single. An intimate and delicate release of raw inner tension, “Inbetween” charts the course from reckoning to acceptance in a song that is as much a personal mantra as it is a cathartic wash of sweet relief.

Inbetween / Themanwhofelltoearth - Worthitpurchase — Inbetween / Themanwhofelltoearth – Worthitpurchase

I should have waited for a longer time, I pantomime
Someone who knows just when to smile,
but I’m defiled
I’ll get there soon, I’ll be grown, too
I’ll get there soon, I’ll be grown, too

Out October 27, 2021 via Anxiety Blanket Records, “Inbetween” / “Themanwhofelltoearth” is Worthitpurchase’s first single of the year and their first release following last year’s debut album, Dizzy Age (October 2020 via Wiggle World). Arriving with the news of a forthcoming sophomore LP expected in early 2022, the band’s first new music in a year signals the exciting start of a fresh chapter for the San Francisco trio of Nicole Rowe, Omar Akrouche, and Eric Van Thyne. Written by Rowe and centering around a single chord, “Inbetween” finds a kind of dormant strength in fragility; the song rises and falls effortlessly, with jangly, unassuming guitars and metronomic backing percussion forming a hypnotic and ultimately dazzling backdrop for a moment of intensely vulnerable introspection.

Rowe’s glistening gold voice holds the spotlight throughout; her soft and stirring performance proves a lightning rod for an avalanche of intimate, poignant emotional release – even as her bandmates join her and the song grows increasingly warm, wondrous, and dreamy.

I see no face in the mirror, then it reappears
Exterior is a hueless ghost and I’m the host
I’ll get there soon, I’ll be like you
I’ll get there soon, I’ll be like you

“I wrote ‘Inbetween’ in Seattle during a transitory period I was going through in 2020,” Rowe tells Atwood Magazine. “It had been a long time since I had written any songs, and I wanted to challenge myself to write a really simple song. Since Tiny Telephone had closed and we weren’t able to record on tape, I wanted to give myself constraints to work within. I ended up using mainly just one chord shape as a type of foundation, and the lyrics came almost immediately after that. At that time I was always stressing myself out about my age and I had this idea that I was somehow behind everyone else. Sometimes it was easy to lose sight of who I was, and I felt like I was missing out on experiencing certain things. This song is my realization that I’ll catch up with everyone else, and that it’s not even something I should worry about. I learned that I can’t blame myself for not being at the same stage of life as the people I surround myself with.”

But I’m all too young and starry-eyed
And always accidentally pushing time

Can’t wrap my head around it

For two and a half magical minutes, “Inbetween” radiates like a beautifully breathtaking daydream: The kind you never want to leave. Aurally intoxicating and lyrically diaristic, Worthitpurchase’s music embraces a moment of visceral reflection and comes out the other side refreshed, renewed, rejuvenated and reinvigorated. It’s the feeling of acceptance at work: When we let go, ever so slightly, of that which we cannot control, and truly recognize that we are helpless to make that change, we gain (in anxiety’s place) a sense of freedom.

Whatever you’re bound by, perhaps “Inbetween” can help unravel it. We don’t have to learn to live and let live – wouldn’t that be a nice goal? – but at the very least, we can come to appreciate who we are and where we are in the present, soaking up the here and now rather than lingering on the if’s and whens. “Inbetween” can be a mantra for all of us, if we let it in.

— —