Alexander Biggs’ achingly intimate and beautifully beachy new song “don’t mean a thing” is a dreamy, catchy indie folk reverie full of big melodies and even bigger emotions. It’s equal parts cathartic and catchy, memorable and moving – a soul-stirring journey deep into the singer/songwriter’s innermost sanctum as he wrestles with unspoken, unresolved tension.
Stream: “don’t mean a thing” – Alexander Biggs
If it really don’t mean a thing, why do I feel it?
Alexander Biggs’ latest single is a warm reminder that raw vulnerability and feel-good music can and do go together.
In fact, they’re a perfect pair. Achingly intimate and beautifully beachy, “don’t mean a thing” is a dreamy, catchy indie folk reverie full of big melodies and even bigger emotions. It’s equal parts cathartic and catchy, memorable and moving – a soul-stirring journey deep into the artist’s innermost sanctum as he wrestles with unspoken, unresolved tension.
So is this the way it’s gonna be from now?
Hanging off of everything
that tumbles from your mouth
Is this how it is now,
are we just letting this go?
Just signing off, that’s all she wrote?
If it really don’t mean a thing
If it really don’t mean a thing
If it really don’t mean a thing,
why do I feel it?
Atwood Magazine is proud to be premiering “don’t mean a thing,” Alexander Biggs’ second single of the year (following this past March’s “pocket protector”). Hauntingly heartfelt, charmingly melodramatic, and irresistibly endearing, “don’t mean a thing” comes to life through gentle, emotionally charged lyrics and a vocal performance to match. The Los Angeles by-way-of Melbourne singer/songwriter spills his soul in three devastatingly beautiful minutes of brooding, breathtaking musical wonderment, exposing his heavy heart as he unpacks the all-too relatable complexities and nuances of a relationship. Singing the quiet part aloud, Biggs asks – to himself, to this other person, and to anyone who’s listening – “If it really don’t mean a thing, why do I feel it?“
While the Australian artist has tackled many a rhetorical question over the past eight years, this is not one of them.
Sometimes the answer – sometimes the truth – is on the tip of our tongue, just waiting to be spoken into the universe. Biggs tiptoes up and down this line throughout “don’t mean a thing,” dancing on the metaphorical edge as he brings a wealth of passionate, poignant, turbulent feelings to life against a lightly atmospheric, ethereal sonic backdrop. As reverb-drenched guitars smolder and soar; as dynamic bass and drums pulse a heavy, hearty beat, Biggs simultaneously basks and dwells, soaking in the heat of his own tender confession:
Are you hearing this,
are you ever hearing me out?
Everything I’m saying to you,
I’m doing to myself
Yeah I do it to myself
If it really don’t mean a thing
If it really don’t mean a thing
If it really don’t mean a thing,
why do I feel it
“‘don’t mean a thing’ was one of the first tracks of the recent bunch that I recorded, but one that took a while to accept as a song that would come out, not just one I’d show my friends and vibe out to on my own,” Alexander Biggs tells Atwood Magazine. “It doesn’t feel the same in hindsight, but at the time it felt like a bold step to me – one of embracing a sweeter, more pop-leaning chorus. It feels silly now, but I really had to find that permission in myself to follow a track like that into the real world.”
“That’s the way it fell out for a lot of us, during COVID — finding new boundaries, questioning ourselves. Some people got haircuts, some people came out, some people just got really into bread. All forms of self-expression. This track, anyway, was the start of something new for me, that felt really exciting. It was the beginning of finally biting down on this lingering ethos I’d had on the last record of not giving a f*k. This one isn’t really made to be sat with; there’s no big idea or meditation.”
“And so it’s a ‘throwaway’ song, but like a ball; you throw it away and it bounces back – the more you toss it and not care about it, the more fun it is to play with.”
Some songs do, in fact, have diminishing returns – the more often you hear them, the less you’re inclined to press play another time. Conversely, “don’t mean a thing” is like a fine wine: The more you have of it, the better it tastes.
Speaking to Atwood Magazine‘s Lowndes Commander around his debut album’s release back in 2021, Biggs expressed his own tendencies to dwell on love, loneliness, and sadness – and how those thoughts filtered into his music. “I think there is real catharsis in making songs,” he shared. “I write to explore those feelings and to make something universal of something that feels very insular — but I am also very happy and live and love and am making the most, but I guess I just don’t feel the need to write about that; I’m too busy being with it. I’m not here to be sad, I’m just here to acknowledge its coming and going. I want to be happy and sad and bear witness to them.”
Biggs has without a doubt born witness to a particularly intimate experience in “don’t mean a thing,” capturing an imbalance between the heart and mind, and between two souls very clearly on different wavelengths. You can say something doesn’t matter to you – that it doesn’t “mean” anything – just like you can say the sky is green and the water blue. Just because you said it, doesn’t make it true. And as much as Biggs’ narrator might want to manifest certain emotions (or a lack thereof), the ultimate takeaway from his latest single is the presence of some pretty hefty feelings begging to be let out.
That weight resonates throughout “don’t mean a thing”; we feel it in Biggs’ voice, as we do in his glistening, golden-hued guitar licks.
Even the sweetest smile can be tinged with melancholy, and in this case, that depth of flavor creates a seductive, multifaceted mélange that hits hard and leaves a lasting mark on all who listen. Dreamy and beachy though it may be, “don’t mean a thing” is an intimately aching reverie through and through: The kind of song that evokes words unspoken and the kind of song we’ll be bathing our souls in all summer long.
Stream Alexander Biggs’ latest single exclusively on Atwood Magazine, and stay tuned for more to come as the singer/songwriter continues to release more songs throughout the year!
“don’t mean a thing” is out everywhere June 28, 2024.
If it really don’t mean a thing
If it really don’t mean a thing
If it really don’t mean a thing, why do I feel it
If it really don’t mean a thing
If it really don’t mean a thing
If it really don’t mean a thing, why do I feel it
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:: connect with Alexander Biggs here ::
Stream: “don’t mean a thing” – Alexander Biggs
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