Australian singer/songwriter Alexander Biggs captures the weight of loss and disconnect in his breathtaking new song “Laundromat,” a hauntingly vulnerable and raw account of feeling a relationship drifting apart.
Stream: “Laundromat” – Alexander Biggs
I’m not asking you to change; I’m just asking you to stay still.
Sometimes an absence can be even more pronounced and powerful than a presence: When we are without someone and miss them, we are forced to confront the impact they have on our lives; the impact of their very being on our daily experience. Australian singer/songwriter Alexander Biggs captures the weight of loss and disconnect in his breathtaking new song “Laundromat,” a hauntingly vulnerable and raw account of feeling a relationship drifting apart.
Wednesday night you took me to a magic show
The same night I said I was gonna leave
Secretly I hoped that there was
omething up your sleeve
But I don’t think I believed it
Bright as day the morning
came to leave our place
We joked that you would come in my suitcase
Dreamed you kissed me as I boarded
but you only smiled and waved
I’m just glad that you made it
Atwood Magazine is proud to be premiering “Laundromat,” Alexander Biggs’ first single of 2020 and his latest offering since last October’s single, “Madeleine.” The third single off his forthcoming debut album (due out in 2020). “Laundromat” picks up where the 2019 tracks “Miserable” and “Madeleine” left off in capturing the emotional sensitivity and haunting, raw creativity with which Alexander Biggs approaches his music.
A 26-year-old singer/songwriter from Melbourne making soothing, impassioned songs full of depth and space, Biggs’ music draws comparisons to the likes of Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, Gordi – and so on: Grounded yet ethereal, songs like “Miserable” cut to the heart of the matter while remaining universally relatable and (somehow) shrouded in mystery.
The same could easily be said of “Laundromat,” a beautifully poignant moment of strained intimacy, heartache, and longing.
Armed with a subtle and unassuming acoustic guitar and spacious, yet still somehow cavernous ethereal soundscape, Biggs emotes with honest, open-hearted sincerity – trying to connect, while feeling like it’s getting harder and harder with each passing moment. He sings in the chorus, his words ringing out into an encroaching darkness:
I’m not asking you to change
I’m not asking you to change
I’m just asking you to stay still
“This song is a sit down shower (which is dreadfully irresponsible in this current climate). I want it to wash over you like the thoughts kind of washed over me,” Biggs tells Atwood Magazine. “I wrote ‘Laundromat’ to wrap my head around a relationship that was seeing a lot more space than there used to be, like I was trying to fill the gaps with noise to cover the creaks of the house. At first it’s a little despondent, then a little desperate, and then a little petty. I wanted to express some of the ways we try to reason with hard decisions and forks in the road, our attempts to barter with fate — sometimes we thrash, other times we sit still.”
Cleaned my room took it all to the laundromat
Watched the clothes spin round my little head
Wondered if my pants could ever wrap around my legs
And walk me interstate
Sold my things to try and win the lottery
To make my money back and find some peace
Didn’t have the guts to steal your heart
but you sold it to me cheap
Something tells me you just leased it
I just wanna hear you speak
I just wanna hear you speak
In the same room as me
Biggs’ lyrics become a balancing act of the selfish and the selfless, but he is always sincere. words mirror that of an anxious ex before the separation is complete: You see your fate and you can read the ending, and you want desperately to change lanes – get out of the way – fix whatever might be broken, before it’s too late.
“To think of you as happy is a burden on my brain, and I don’t think I can take it,” Biggs sings toward the song’s end, capturing the weight of these thoughts and emotions that are baring down on him. Perhaps one of the song’s clearest and most stirring moments of poetry, this phrasing showcases the complexity at the core of Biggs’ conflict: He wants everything to go back to the way it was, and he can’t stand the idea that his loved one is happy without him as present as he once was in their life. Provocative and heartbreaking, it is at this point that we realize the end may have already come; that this is more of a eulogy, than it is an attempt to repair or restore things.
Nevertheless, “Laundromat” is beautiful.
Alexander Biggs washes an array of powerful emotions in a breathtaking confessional outpouring: His pain resonates louder than anything else as he tells his story of connection and disconnect, love and loss, change and nostalgia.
Stream “Laundromat” exclusively on Atwood Magazine, and stay tuned for more from Alexander Biggs as he prepares to release his debut album later this year!
To think of you as happy is a burden on my brain, and I don’t think I can take it.
To wish you well’s a wishing well a
Hopeful waste
Rather throw my money down the drain
To think of you as happy is a burden on my brain
And I don’t think I can take it
But I hope that you’re okay
Oh I hope that you’re okay
Dancing on my grave
Stream: “Laundromat” – Alexander Biggs
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