A gentle, glistening song steeped in reflective warmth and dreamy nostalgia, Work Wife’s “Something’s Up” is an ode to our best friend’s moms and all the other non-parental figures who helped us come of age.
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Stream: “Something’s Up” – Work Wife
No, this isn’t a Stacy’s Mom-type situation.
We all love our parents, but growing up, sometimes you needed an unbiased third-party perspective: Someone who knew you well enough to offer wisdom and advice, but who didn’t – you know – live with you, make the rules, or judge you for your actions. Sometimes that person was a grandparent, an uncle or an aunt, and sometimes, it was your best friend’s mom: Always ready to listen, comfort, and care. She’d known you all your life, but she wasn’t responsible for you; it was like having an older, much wiser friend.
And we cherished those connections.
When Brooklyn indie pop band Work Wife sing about leaning in, speaking loud, soft smiles, and knowing eyes, a world we’ve nearly forgotten creeps back into view, and for a few minutes we’re returned to our younger selves and those secret relationships that meant so much. A gentle, glistening song steeped in reflective warmth and dreamy nostalgia, “Something’s Up” is an ode to our best friend’s moms and all the other non-parental figures who helped us come of age.
A holiday and a time machine
We live that past over over again
I know you miss those sneaker joke
wait for the ball kind of days
I know you dream about rough touch
throw me the ball kind of days
Cause we all have that
house we escape to
See my best friend Jess
with the crack in the drive
Heavy hand big family
secret microaggressions
It’s better that way, savin’ money
on professional sessions
Released February 22, 2024 via Born Losers Records, “Something’s Up” is the enchanting second single taken off Work Wife’s upcoming sophomore EP, Waste Management (out April 12). Following the record’s smoldering, slow-burning lead single “Strangers” (released in January), “Something’s Up” finds the Brooklyn trio in a lighter, yet no less emotionally evocative headspace.
Frontwoman Meredith Lampe sets an intimate tone as she sings softly, her words tight and her voice hot on the mic, supported by bandmates Kenny Monroe (bass/vocals) and Cody Edgerly (drums):
So lean in, speak loud
I could do this forever
Chosen family time slow down
Sit me by her, the matriarch
soft smile, cut me off
A hand, an eye you always know when
Something’s up
“‘Something’s Up’ is about your best friend’s mom and how she always knows the right thing to say,” Lampe tells Atwood Magazine. “It’s about feeling more honest with her than you might feel with your own family, with whom the repercussions of confessing bad decisions are greater.”
“I have a lot of fond memories of running around at my childhood best friend Jessica’s house and getting into trouble, and this song is a little ode to that time.”
Do you ever miss being lonely?
We filled this house with echoes and shapes
And tell me this year what is it that you’re tryna quit
And would you recommend that I make
all the same choices you did
A standout off the upcoming six-track Waste Management, “Something’s Up” showcases Work Wife’s ability to evoke strong emotions with effortless grace. While the EP’s name itself may (or may not) be a reference to a certain award-winning, turn-of-the-century mob boss crime drama, the band likes to describe their new record as exploring place and the passing of time.
It’s about “living in New York, watching the world change rapidly and feeling like you should too, wandering in and out of friendships and relationships and locations and moments,” Lampe shares. “We wanted to explore the tension of opposites: Feeling extreme stress from busyness but having nothing to do, feeling lonely while surrounded by people, how time speeds up and slows down in periods of confusion and joy, respectively. There aren’t instructions for this stuff, and most of the time it feels like we’re shooting in the dark. This EP is us processing how to navigate life with only intuition, reading between the lines and peering out as the city goes by through a squint.”
“The title of the EP, Waste Management, is a quip about the continuous process of clearing out space in your head and rearranging your thoughts, like clothes in a messy bedroom that can’t ever quite be perfectly knolled.”
How better to clear the headspace than by spilling all your cluttered thoughts, and who better to hear them than your best friend’s mother – a person you could trust, who wouldn’t tell a soul (probably, one hopes, unless you were in some kind of danger).
Those sessions were a sacred part of our younger years, and while most of us have probably forgotten most of them (I know I had), Work Wife let us relive the past for three very special minutes in “Something’s Up.”
So lean in, speak loud
I could do this forever
Chosen family time slow down
Sit me by her, the matriarch
Soft smile, cut me off
A hand, an eye she always knows when
Something’s up
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Stream: “Something’s Up” – Work Wife
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