Love has always been a higher power to Oh Wonder, and on the pair’s latest single that sacred reverence comes out in full force: “Can We Always be Friends?” is a sweetly stirring embrace of the raw, intimate, and beautiful connection at the foundation of the Vander Wests’ love.
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Stream: “Can We Always Be Friends?” – Oh Wonder
Love has always been a higher power to Oh Wonder, and on the pair’s latest single that sacred reverence comes out in full force.
“Holy, look at all this light that I give you; you’re shining like the top of a tower,” Josephine Vander West sings softly, muted pianos glowing gently behind her tender voice. “Holy, look at all this life that you give me; I’m shining like I found all my power.” So begins a cinematic celebration not of love as an abstract concept, but of the personal and profound love shared between two souls:
When we go, we go out dancing
Move Heaven and Earth
Spin around like we are endless
Can we always be friends?
We’ve got too much love
Can we always be friends?
Too much love, too much love
You and me together
Together ’til the end
Can we always be friends?
Can we always be friends?
When you’re truly, madly this deep in love, it’s all-consuming and ever-present – as it has been for Oh Wonder’s Anthony Vander West and Josephine Vander West for quite some time. The longtime couple / bandmates wed last year and subsequently put out an entire album (October 2021’s 22 Break) about how they had nearly broken up during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. “We used music as a way out,” Oh Wonder recently shared. “We wrote all our pain, sadness, and confusion into a collection of songs that we eventually released as the album, 22 Break. But for us, that was only half of the story.”
Following on the heels of this year’s singles “Magnificent,” “F*ck It I Love You,” and “True Romance,” “Can We Always Be Friends?” (released September 28) heralds the upcoming release of 22 Break’s second half, 22 Make: An album “soundtracking the light at the end of a tunnel,” as the band so eloquently put it.
Oh Wonder are no strangers to love songs, but this is a whole love album. “We managed to survive our rocky patch, and emerge stronger than ever and full of love for each other,” the pair explain. “It only felt right therefore, to write about the other side, where you realise not just that you’re meant for each other, but also that it also takes two people to make a love flourish. We are thrilled to be releasing 22 Make, an album full of love and life-affirming songs that reflect on fate, gratitude and being there for someone.”
Holy, body full of buzz when you’re in view
Adoring you a million an hour
Holy, look at all this happiness come through
I’m flying like a bee to a flower
“Can We Always be Friends?” is a sweetly stirring, jazz-tinged embrace of the raw, intimate connection at the foundation of the Vander Wests’ love.
For many, true love makes you inseparable; makes you best friends; makes you partners for life “We’ve got too much love… you and me together ‘til the end,” the indie pop duo declare in this song’s chorus. More a statement of intent than it is a real, or even rhetorical question, this song is its own form of sacred vows.
22 Make is out October 7th on Island Records.
So can we always be friends?
We’ve got too much love
Can we always be friends?
Too much love, too much love
You and me together
Together ’til the end
Can we always be friends?
Can we always be friends?
Can we always be friends?
‘Cause in a world of plenty of people
There is no one else
So can we always be you and me?
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Stream: “Can We Always Be Friends?” – Oh Wonder
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