Singer/songwriter Evelyn Frances dwells on inertia in her stirring song “Tired,” a passive slow burn that erupts in visceral emotion and smoldering indie folk – not to mention a feverish guitar solo that leaves us speechless and shaken.
Stream: “Tired” – Evelyn Frances
There’s always a reason to put something off ’til tomorrow: You’re busy; you’re hungry; you need the inspiration; you lack the energy; you’re just too tired. “Tomorrow is only a day away,” we tell ourselves, unintentionally getting the ubiquitous Annie show tune stuck in our heads. Singer/songwriter Evelyn Frances dwells on inertia in her stirring song “Tired,” a passive slow burn that erupts in visceral emotion and smoldering indie folk – not to mention a feverish guitar solo that leaves us speechless and shaken.
You think today you’ll start again
But the thought of it makes you tired
And you can’t no you can’t
No you can’t possibly start when you’re tired
You think today you’ll start again
Pick up your pen but the dog starts to bark
And you can’t, no you can’t
No you can’t possibly try now
Give me a second
I think I’ve got it
Give me a century
I’ll come up with something eventually
Atwood Magazine is proud to be premiering “Tired,” Evelyn Frances’ first single since 2019’s debut album Seed put her particular brand of alternative, experimental indie folk on the music map. The independent singer/songwriter originally from upstate New York (now based in rural Ireland) channels as much Elliott Smith and Joni Mitchell as she does Deep Purple and Rainbow in a heavy and hushed upheaval of the soul. Achingly raw and intimately confessional, “Tired” reckons with an unshakeable feeling of being “stuck”: In a rut, in the motions, in an unbreakable cycle, in a life you’re not sure you ever wanted in the first place.
Resigned to a circle of frustration, insecurity, indecision, and self-doubt, “Tired” is quite the dark song about putting things off for a “later” that never comes. The song rises up from a depressive fog, where even the feeling of picking up your instrument and humming a melody feels overwhelming – an insurmountable ordeal. “Give me a second, I think I’ve got it,” Frances sings in silky, spine-shuddering tones on her first chorus. “Give me a century… I’ll come up with something eventually.“
“‘Tired’ is a literal list of all of the excuses not to begin,” the artist tells Atwood Magazine. “When I wrote the song, I was living in Brooklyn and just in a really stuck place in my life. I find my life often fluctuates between periods of extreme frustration and stuckness, to extreme excitement and output.”
“Before I wrote ‘Tired,’ I had finished my last record a while before and had only written a couple songs since then. I’m not someone with a set songwriting schedule. I just let them happen in bits and pieces as life happens. I’m kind of lazy that way, but I’m ok with it. And so, I just laid in my bed and wrote all of these excuses down that were circling in my head. Much later that year, I wrote a little guitar riff that wasn’t like my normal songs, which are more melodic and moody, and so I just started singing these excuses on top of the riff in the same melody and it felt really… tired.”
So you take the dog for a walk
And you think about later
Yes later is surely the time to begin
You think later, you’ll start again
But when you get home your husband’s there
He’s got dinner made, he wants to hear
All about your goddamn day
Give me a minute
I think I’ve got it
Give me a millennium
I’ll come up with something
True to its name, “Tired” moves and grooves with a sense of overarching fatigue – a groggy drowsiness that we just can’t shake. It’s moody and nuanced, drained and exhausted – rising and falling in hypnotic waves as Frances’ narrator tries to bring herself to action, only to continue putting things off and avoiding confrontation both with herself, and with her goals. “So you take the dog for a walk, and you think about later – yes, later Is surely the time to begin,” Frances sings in the second verse, planting the seeds for a doomed future scheme. “You think later you’ll start again, but when you get home your husband’s there…” and so the story goes, through dinner, being too tired after dinner, and ultimately going to sleep – where “you dream about tomorrow, but tomorrow comes and you’ve got to work, and the dog needs to be walked, and dinner’s made, and you’re tired, and you can’t possibly start when you’re tired.” The cycle resets and restarts, and no progress is made.
In and around this storyline is a cinematic match that, once struck, refuses to go out. Frances’ electric guitar work is irresistible evocative, capturing all the emotion she’s got pent up inside. It conveys a sense of unresolved yearning and drive; of angst and ache; submission, but not acceptance. It’s the narrator’s inner self trying to break free of its inert cage.
And after dinner you’re too tired to think
And you can’t possibly start when you’re tired
So you go to sleep and you dream about tomorrow
But tomorrow comes
And you’ve got to work
And the dog needs to be walked
And dinner’s made
And you’re tired
And you can’t possibly start when you’re tired
Alas, this is not a song of change, productivity, or progress; “Tired” slinks back into itself at the end, leaving us not only shaken, but also as hungry as Frances is for more.
If Evelyn Frances is “beginning again” as she says she is, then this is quite the reintroduction – a song so full of tension and churning energy that never sees release. Wake up to with this entrancing, immersive and restrained outpouring, streaming exclusively on Atwood Magazine!
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Stream: “Tired” – Evelyn Frances
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