New York’s Richie Quake unveils an inner reckoning on new single “Crawl” (ft. Anna Shoemaker), a feverish and intimate exploration of his love/hate relationship with life itself.
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Stream: “Crawl” – Richie Quake, Anna Shoemaker
If we accept the premise that life is like a rollercoaster – a series of thrilling peaks and sweeping valleys, with a whole lot of space, movement, and anticipation in between – then we must inevitably ask ourselves whether we’re in it for those rare, fleeting climaxes, or in it for the ride as a whole. Both are legitimate philosophies, and how we answer that question dramatically impacts the course of our lives, coloring everything from our everyday actions and behaviors to our deepest emotions and perspectives. New York’s Richie Quake unveils his own inner reckoning on new single “Crawl” (ft. Anna Shoemaker), a feverish and intimate exploration of his love/hate relationship with life itself.
Feel it under my skin
And it’s starting to crawl
And I’m feeling it all
On the way home
I’m second guessing
‘Bout the life that I chose
On the way to the show
Chasing highs, riding lows
Am I looking for love
Or just someone to know?
Chasing highs, riding lows
Am I looking for love
Or just someone to know?
Though it may have been released on April 1, “Crawl” is no joke. Following February’s sweetly searing “That’s Not Love!”, Richie Quake’s dramatic second single of the year (via Mass Appeal Records) finds him dwelling in visceral existential questions about his purpose and place in the world. Together with fellow New York City up-and-comer Anna Shoemaker – who just released her own debut album, Everything Is Fine (I’m Only on Fire), earlier this year – Quake paints a vivid and achingly emotive tapestry replete with smoldering synths, heavy, pulsing bass, and tender, gently soaring vocals. “Chasing highs, riding lows; am I looking for love, or just someone to know?” he repeatedly asks in the chorus, wondering aloud if he’s living for each day to the fullest, or just waiting for some sort of change to knock him off his feet.
For Quake, this song is an especially meaningful moment of honesty and truth in his artistry. “‘Crawl’ is about my love/hate relationship with being alive,” he tells Atwood Magazine. “You gotta just be along for the ride and question everything and enjoy what you can and get through the rest of it in whatever way you can.”
“People just want to be happy, to feel love, and to be at peace, but everyone goes about that journey in a different way,” he adds. “No matter which path you decide, there are pros and cons that you have to live with. When you look at life, it can become distorted, and the structures that the mind clings to start to lose their shape, like when you say a word over and over again until it becomes meaningless. But you stay on the ride and hope for the best. Chasing highs, riding lows.”
I wanna slide back
Put it in reverse and
Not let you go
Yeah I’d hold you close
We’ll have a good laugh
You’ll give me a free pass
For losing control
Losing control
Chasing highs, riding lows
Am I looking for love
Or just someone to know?
Chasing highs, riding lows
Am I looking for love
Or just someone to know?
Both Quake and Shoemaker are no strangers to sharing their deepest, darkest truths in song; much of Shoemaker’s new album reads like a diary and feels like a fever dream, its songs burning bright with passion, charisma, energy, and raw, real emotion. It comes as no surprise, then, that these two talented artists would come together on a song about figuring out what really matters to us in life.
“Richie and I just want to be artists and make music,” Shoemaker says, offering a fresh take that audiences may not think about on their first listen: “I think this song is about how that can be really f-ing hard when your worth is based on whether your music goes viral or not.”
Taking Shoemaker’s words at face value, “chasing highs and riding lows” is more than a “potential” route for happiness and contentment; it feels like a “must” if you want to be survive as a recording artist in today’s culture and economy.
Don’t look at the mirror baby everything is upside down
Walkin’ on the ceiling and my head is dragging on the ground
Don’t look at the mirror baby everything is upside down
Walkin’ on the ceiling and my head is dragging on the ground
But it isn’t a must; artists shouldn’t have to be 24/7 content creators, and in a way, “Crawl” is a rejection to that demand. However we choose to interpret this song, Richie Quake is undeniably charting his own course. “Crawl” is a grooving, cathartic implosion that, despite the inherent chaos of its lyrics, offers us a kind of sound peace of mind in knowing that, whatever we decide to do, the choice is ours even if everything (and everyone) around us tells us otherwise. Live fast for the highs and risk losing control, or soak up every moment. Maybe it’s alright to crawl.
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:: stream/purchase “Crawl” here ::
Stream: “Crawl” – Richie Quake, Anna Shoemaker
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