Loners,

This morning I’ve been fooling around with a playlist of songs that I loved in the early aughts. I focused on 2002–2005, but mostly ’02 and ’03. This was a very specific time in my life, as I moved from Vancouver to Montreal. Music wasn’t just my job, it was my everything. There was no silence in my life. I always had headphones on, listening, and I mean actively listening to albums and mix CDs. I was studying every note. When I wasn’t on tour, I was seeing concerts and gigs weekly. Some of the shows were sold out and packed (The Rapture, Peaches), and others were spectacles witnessed by only myself and a handful of others (A.R.E. Weapons at Sala Rosa).

I felt invisible in Montreal, not part of the scene as a fan or as an artist. I was a ghost, and other times an interloper. I saw musicians I admired amongst the crowds and felt searing jealousy and desperation to be acknowledged. Even as our career was growing outside of Montreal and Canada, I would spend years longing to be witnessed by my peers. I’d learn to love the anonymity and aloof way people interacted with me and my “public” self, but at 22, I was weighed down by the chip on my shoulder. Sometimes when I sat down to write songs, I’d imagine those artists, those strangers in the crowds at their gigs, and I’d write for them, sing to them.

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Loners,

Sometimes a song hits me on first listen. I avoid the radio, and I don’t have reflexes quick enough to Shazam melodies that grab me in elevators or the mall. I still read music websites, and I attempt to spend a few hours a week listening to new music. A few friends send recommendations. Sometimes I doom scroll, and someone will stand out, and I’ll follow them down a rabbit hole. Wherever it happens, it happens.

Here are my first-listen, head-rush, goosebump songs of late.

Happy fall, my favourite season of all.

Sara

Au Pays du Cocaine, Geese. I play this song at a dangerously loud volume in the car and sing at the top of my lungs. Full voice, just letting every cell feel it. I don’t just love it, I covet the entire heart of the performance. I also adore the music video, and I’m jealous I didn’t think of the idea myself. “Baby, you can change, and still choose me.”

Something About Julien, Scott Herman. I’m trying to sort out how to play this one because the chorus is one of those simple puzzles I want to solve every time I hear it. I can’t quite think of another song like it (lyrically) and during this tipsy turvy toxic time for LGBTQ folks, I like the idea of a straight guy singing about having a crush on another guy in a totally sweet way.

Hartsdale Hotbox, Frog. All the best parts of what made me love music in my 20s. Discovering artists who wrote songs that could destroy me, without being the kind of songs that turned the entire world on. I guess it was music that felt like a secret, and for only a certain kind of ears. Frog, does that for me and this song is addictive. I like to play it on repeat.

Leave Me Be, Choir Boy. This is my favourite driving song right now. Have I mentioned how much I love to drive? I get a little butterfly buzz in the pit of my stomach when I know I have time in my day to just cruise around. Sometimes I go to the carwash, or down to the beach near my house. Someone once told me I’d feel free becoming a driver. It took a few years, but the nervousness of driving has settled and it’s pure pleasure.

Yukon, and Kill The Bull, Fin Peach. I fell down a rabbit hole watching covers and nothing grabbed me more than his. It’s so specifically his voice, but also the facial expressions? Adorable, compelling.

Ruin The Friendship, Taylor Swift. It makes me think of Smashing Pumpkins, 1979. That video and song were such a slow burn, at 15 I wanted to dismiss how light, how optimistic and nostalgic it all felt. And yet, it just burrowed into my brain and heart and now at 45 I can just weep when I hear it. Will this song make me feel that way in 25 years?

Otis, The Durutti Column. I don’t do drugs, but this is my drug music.

Loners,

I love autumn. Always have. It’s my birthday month, and I love sweaters, layers, and the feeling that we are starting again. The season of change, when the leaves turn the most marvellous colours, when they die, and leave every tree a skeleton system.

I love how stores overflow with school supplies, and the feeling, even if only a memory, of starting fresh at school, or a new project, album or tour. September makes me long for physical change: to work out harder, more often, to cut my bangs, to fill bags with clothing I haven’t worn in years, and to remake myself into the person I’m always striving to be. To organize the closest and the garage. To have a garage sale!

I’ve always liked the return to a schedule, to habits that felt unbearable in June but are suddenly welcome after months of flexibility. Miles of summer travel make me long for stillness and repetition. Clockwork.

This year for my birthday (my 45th— how is that possible?) I took a solo trip. Three nights alone with a fantastic book and my favourite hat (below). On the first night, after I turned off the lights, I heard the dreaded buzz of a mosquito in my left ear. I flipped the light switch. In the harsh light, I saw two wolf spiders freeze in place next to the bed. They were far from the wall, clearly making some kind of trip across the floor. Using a magazine I tried to navigate them toward the door and under its gap.

I searched the dark room for mosquitos with a flashlight, and a rolled-up towel, snapping it at the wall, and ceiling. I fashioned a trap using dish soap before giving up and pulling a heap of pillows over my head. In the morning, I had bites behind my ears. On the morning of my actual birthday, I had breakfast and then went to the spa. I finished the day at a restaurant next to a lagoon, chickens clucking at my heels.

I feel grateful for age, for wisdom, for my health. As I fell asleep, I tried to remember every birthday of my life. Lately, when I find myself in a quiet place, doing something that comforts me, it usually means taking an accounting of my life my remembering the places I’ve loved. The floorpans of each home I’ve lived in, or those of my grandparents or parents. Will my son do this one day? Will he try to trace the steps of his life, and how many of those steps will have been taken on the path with me?

Here’s my autumn playlist for you,

-Sara

Hi, it’s me, Tegan.

I hope you are …

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Hello Loners,

Here is a little fun-dumb version of Red Belt for your ears.

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Loners,

I’m back with another voice note cover, recorded a week before Sid was born. While the performance isn’t great, I can’t let myself erase it. I don’t remember why I was playing Coldplay’s, “Yellow”, but, I imagine that I was killing time, nervous, and waiting. Maybe thinking about my own song, “Yellow”, from Crybaby, that we were preparing a video shoot for. I gave up halfway through, but, i’m playing the song so damn slow, you won’t be sad it’s over. :)

-Sara

Loners,

It finally feels like summer, and I’ve updated my playlist for your bbq’ing, cocktail hour, road trippin’ needs.

Deeply love Charli’s new album, BRAT, and can’t get enough of Rachel Chinouriri’s voice. Fully fallen for both Zach Bryan, and Mk.gee. Andre 3000’s flute album is bizarre and perfect for first thing in the morning.

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Hey Loners,

I bought myself a piano in 2021. Stacy and I had just moved into a new house, and my office, a small, sunny room across the hall from our bedroom, became an inspired place to reacquaint myself with some of my favourite songs.

After Sid was born, I moved my office out of the house, but I left the piano behind. It sits in our living room so that Sid has easy access to a musical instrument should he want to play it one day.

I hope you enjoy these short recordings I made from that time. My hair is so long, and watching these again this morning, I couldn’t help but search my face for evidence of the person I was then. Feels like a lifetime ago.

Leave me suggestions for other covers in the comments!

Sara

Header Video:

"Don’t Dream It’s Over" by Crowded House reminds me of Dad’s rusted grey Honda Accord and the long drives between Mom’s house and his apartment that we made every Saturday and Sunday morning as kids. The boredom, the daydreaming, and the inevitable drifting off to sleep in the backseat are such mundane memories that it seems as though they happened a million times, or maybe only once.

New Order’s "Bizarre Love Triangle" is a song I wish I’d written. In fact, if there’s a band that makes me sometimes dream of starting a new band, it’s that one. I want to so blatantly rip off New Order that it’s embarrassing. And I won’t care because it will be like living inside the most perfect skin.

Covering "The Con," :)

Hi Loners,

Recently, someone asked me if I practiced every day, and I laughed out loud. Later, I couldn’t stop thinking about how rude I must have seemed, overconfident even about my abilities. The truth is that I hate to practice, just like I dislike working out, though once I’m back in the habit of running, the feeling of dread or nagging procrastination fades somewhat the more I do it.

The block of hours I spend learning (re-learning) guitar and lyrics for a refreshed set are not rewarding the way writing music is, and of course, there is nothing like the rush and satisfaction of performing live. It is exercise, and I’ve never been good at it. I don’t stretch (to jog or learn), so I often hurt myself. These are injuries physical and mental. My neck is terribly stiff; last night, I came home feeling zombified and fell asleep at 9 PM.  

One shortcut I’ve found helps me with lyrics is practicing singing a song while doing something complicated on the guitar/with my hands, like jumping over hurdles when preparing for a sprint. The unpredictability of an audience, a technical issue, or an errant thought can cause cognitive disruption on stage. My goal before a tour is to get as much of the set into muscle memory to make that (inevitable) disruption harder.

I was working on Like O, Like H, and Sentimental Tune this morning and recorded my first attempts. I’m not using any prompts for guitar or lyrics. I'm just trying to play from the hard drive of my mind. Mistakes included. Enjoy!

Sara

Loners!

Here is a rehearsal video of 'Back In Your Head.' I loved the live version we did on our last tour, and I can’t wait to release the official recording of it (TBD). Grant Zubritsky, our terrific musical director, added some interesting musical textures and pitched vocals that gave the whole thing a dark, twisted feeling that I adored. It was the first time we’ve played acoustically (just me and Tegan) with only backing tracks, and it felt very cool.

I have been dodging the guitar for years, partly due to chronic wrist and back pain. I happily shed the guitar during our Heartthrob days, excited by the freedom and exposure of being only a lead singer. I think that singular focus allowed me to become a more accomplished and disciplined performer. Yet, it was the instrument that first inspired my love of songwriting, and I found myself newly inspired, promising to reinvest. Yesterday, I went to my studio and noodled around for a bit. This morning, I woke up with a kink in my neck! WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN.

This rehearsal video that I put up on Tik Tok was what got it all started (sorry for the subtitles if you hate that kind of thing), and it's a good example of what I sometimes do if I’m trying to rework a key or arrangement for a song in advance of a tour.

Enjoy!

Sara

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Tegan,

I keep a file of inspiring images on my desktop. Sometimes, I browse through it when we're gathering ideas for new album artwork or merchandise. Occasionally, I refer to it when naming a musical project that doesn't have lyrics yet.

One such project is a song I wrote in 2021 called 'Cry, Sis.' Like many of the songs I’ve written, there are several versions, but this is the one I prefer. The title itself is derived from an image by Sebastian Haslauer, which I hold in high regard. In fact, I proposed using the title and artwork for 'Heartthrob' in 2012.

Emy had a high-quality print made for me, which I've kept rolled up in a tube somewhere. Perhaps I'll finally take it out and hang it up here at the office.

-Sara

PS. I find it amusing that the image contains a martini, because you had your first martini on this most recent tour!

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Sara,

As summer approaches, and we prepare for our upcoming tour and the release of our graphic novel, Junior High, I find myself awash with nostalgia for the carefree days of our youth. Such simple summers, yet they were full of magic. Months of us just lounging in our plastic pool, soaking up the sun in the freshly-mowed grass of our backyard, beating the heat by watching movies in the cool basement, and playing endless rounds of Mario Kart. Despite any remarkable adventures, the summers of our childhood feel so rich in my memory. Months of running around in shoes without socks, friendship bracelets tied tight around our tanned ankles, draped in homemade shorts that mom would sew for us from fabric we chose at Fabricland. I can still taste the Imperial Cheese you and I would spread on toast at Grammas in the mornings she’d babysit us, feel the feeling of huddling together with our friends, eating endless bowls of chips, and slurping on Slurpees, as we watched horror movies in the basement, the front door propped open to cool the upstairs. It was the simple things that made those summers memorable wouldn’t you agree?

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Anyway, I was rummaging through old demos this afternoon and found a song about summer we never officially released. I called it, Has Passed. Though it should really be called, Our Moment Has Passed. I can't recall the exact inspiration for the song, but I remember composing it during a sweltering summer in Vancouver around 2009. At the time, I was living in that stifling hot loft off Main Street. Remember? The heat in the summer would make it impossible to sleep at night, which drove me out of bed, and downstairs where I’d play guitar and write in the moonlight. Funny, as uncomfortable as those nights were, I look back on them fondly, just like I do on our childhood summers.

Enjoy,

Tegan

Has Passed

Let the summer wind hit your skin
Remind me when this all started changing
Let the summer heat knock you over, take me over
Times, they are changing
With the light of night laid out before us running wild
Oh so they called us, called us young
To the rest of us, for the best of us, we're left with this now
We resign ourselves

Our moment has passed, our moment has passed

Let the summer wind blow stories in
Like gold left buried underneath our neighbourhood
Let the summer heat escape our streets
Up overhead the lives we led in our neighbourhood

And everywhere love's spilling over, can't help ourselves
Thought we were older when we were young
To the rest of us, for the best of us, we're left with this now
We, we resign ourselves

Our moment has passed, our moment has passed

Let the summer wind reveal your skin
Remind me how we've all started changing
Let the summer heat tear through the seams
Remind me how times, they are changing

And every year, come summertime
I think, "How come things aren't alive like when we were young?"
To the rest of us, for the best of us, we're left with this now
We resign ourselves

Our moment has passed, our moment has passed

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Tegan,

In April 2017, I attempted to record a cover of my second favorite Magnetic Fields song, “The Book of Love.” I’ve always loved singing “I Don’t Want to Get Over You” because it feels exactly like a song I would write (or try desperately in vain to write.) “The Book of Love” is lyrically, thornier. And it was especially thorny in 2017. Stacy and I were on the precipice of deciding if we were going to try to start a family together. It was a decision that forced us to consider other ones, like, in which country would we raise a baby? And the answer to that question forced us to contemplate our status as a couple. 

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I’ve always had a complicated relationship with the institution of marriage. If we didn’t live in a world that privileged married people over the unmarried (legally and culturally), I would have never married Stacy. Our unmarried status was a quiet protest and deciding to become legally bound was an unsentimental decision that helped us make a home and family together in Canada. 

It was four years later, after Sid was born, that we began outing ourselves as “wives” in public and disclosing our relationship status as “married” more frequently. This had everything to do with Sid, and ensuring that those around us understood (and respected) our family structure. It was a way of saying, “no, we are not sisters, friends, cousins, the nanny, or sister-in-laws.” It was a way of saying, “we are both his mother.” I fucking hate the truth of it, how much weight that ridiculous word (wife) carries in our lame, wedding/marriage-loving society. I never cared what people thought before having a child so why do I care so much about it now? I suppose I never want Sid to encounter doubt or confusion about what other people think about us. Just another reason to hate marriage (and heteronormative culture), if you ask me! 

I never wanted to get married but I do love weddings. I am often undone by emotional strangers. I also like wine and dancing. Weddings remind me of funerals, how if we’re lucky we will all find someone who will mourn important losses with us. Who we may ourselves have to mourn, and of course, who might have to one day mourn us.

If there is a song that can cover all of that, then this is it. 

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Tegan,

I have been searching old hard drives and I came across this cover of One Direction’s song, Fireproof. I recorded it in April 2017, and, I’m not sure I knew anything about the band, except that Mitski, had covered the song and I loved it. Strange to think how culturally relevant Harry Styles would become (to me) shortly after recording my bedroom cover.

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And our love for him apparently just kept on growing.

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Tegan,

 In Grade 7, I remember our friend M. was an early trendsetter when it came to fashion and music. She was confident and had a competitive streak. M. often adopted her popular older sister’s interests and ideas, as easily as she rejected other people’s seemingly with no rhyme or reason. It was thrilling to be front row to their arguments and I remember M. often besting her sister by simply showing no interest in the drama. M. was scrappy and charismatic and when she best friend-ed us, we felt chosen. If she liked something, I wanted to like it too.

It was in home economics class that she shared two important songs with me. The first, Say Something by the band James, and the second, Creep by Radiohead. I eventually asked Mom for both Laid and Pablo Honey, the respective albums from which those singles came. On Christmas Day, I locked myself away with both albums, immediately discarding those first singles I’d loved for deeper cuts. It was an upbeat ballad on Laid that grabbed me, and thirty years later, it has not let go. 

Say Something was #5 on Laid’s tracklist. Sequencing, and the value of full albums, has drastically changed over the years. But, as an artist, I know that the 5th song on any album is generally a single and in some cases the best song. Don’t believe me?

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Our tenth studio album Crybaby is out now! You can stream it, buy it digitally, or go to a record store and pick up a physical copy today! We are so proud of this album and hope that you’ll listen to the whole thing (a hundred times).

We co-produced the album with the delighted, talented, and hilarious John Congleton. These songs capture the tumultuous t…

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Sara –

I dug through our old emails this morning and I found the first one I sent you about the song that would become Smoking Weed Alone. It was originally titled, I’m Alright, I’m Okay.  I started writing it in the studio last fall when we were down in LA working with John Congleton.  I don’t remember why but John went home to work, and you went back to the hotel, and I stayed in the studio alone.  I didn’t feel like writing something new on the guitar, but I had some tracks that Sultan and Ned (who co-wrote Drove Me Wild) sent me.  I ended up just playing one section of the track, again and again, singing a melody with these words about my dream.

I’m walking sidewalks I used to run down

Dreaming in backyards I used to hang out in

I’m in the woods smoking weed alone

Wondering if it’s time to get clean again

I went back to Vancouver and experimented with the melody I’d come up with, moving the chords around and changing the key. I moved to the guitar and wrote the pre-chorus and a chorus we’d eventually cut. I changed the lyrics and sent you four versions of the song at different tempos. The song was inspired by a dream I’d had while I was in LA.  I dreamt that I was stoned. I don’t do drugs these days; as you know, I left weed smoking behind after high school. 

But in the dream, I was in our old neighborhood in Monterey Park.  Even though I was overjoyed to move away when we were 16, it felt familiar to be back in my dream.  And I was happy.  I ran up the street, laughing, free.  But then I had the strongest desire to wake up.  When I did, I thought about the fields behind our house.  You and I used to sneak through a hole in the fence that surrounded the neighborhood and smoke weed there after school.  Our backyard looked onto three others, but no one had fences; it was all so new. So we’d hide in the fields to get high.  All I remember is that the wheat or whatever it was stood over six feet.  And you and I’d tuck ourselves into the brittle hollow stocks and smoke ourselves up.  I used to love smoking weed.  Before school, during school, and after school.  I was in a constant state of either being high or burning out through most of the tenth and eleventh grades. Same as you.  But the more I played guitar, the more I made music, the more you and I worked on our songs together, the less I wanted to get high.  I hated touching the guitar when I was stoned.  It was a complete mystery to me, as opposed to when I was sober, and it felt like a part of me.  I am very grateful to have found that part of me, so I didn’t go down the other path I was on—that we were on.  

Anyway, when I went back to Vancouver to finish writing Smoking Weed Alone after our second recording trip to LA, what I hoped for was a song that captured my biggest fear.  That I might be losing some of my light.  I’ve always felt so optimistic, so happy, so creative.  But I was losing that.  The last few years have been so wonderful on one hand—being home with Sofia, getting a dog, and having years of time to connect and create.  But on the other hand, it’s given me a lot of time to worry and wonder about the what-ifs.  What if touring never recovers?  What if no one likes our new music?  What if our TV show bombs?  What if we’re too old to be cool or relevant?  What if we have to find some other job to fill our days, to pay our bills, to keep the lights on?

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Ten years ago in a coffee shop with our managers, after a dismal and emotional band rehearsal that ended in you and I screaming and crying with one another, I admitted that sometimes I just wanted this all to end.  The band.  Our career.  The pressure.  The constant touring.  The disappointment.  The fights.  The conflict. The compromises.  One of them said, Why not quit then? Do something different.  I was astonished they thought that was even possible.  How, I cried, how do you quit your family?  I rambled on for some time about the repercussions of quitting, what would that do to you, to our family, to our management and the team around us.  We owed our label albums.  We were expected to tour, to work, to drive sales, to market ourselves, to update our social media constantly, to make things, to sell things, to perform, night after night after night.  Year after year after year.  How could I let all those people down? And worst of all, who would I be if I wasn’t this person?  I didn’t have a choice.  This was not a choice anymore.  This was something entirely different.  These last few years at home, I asked myself a lot of those questions again. You and I sat and wondered about them together.  Why are we still doing this?  If we are doing it, what should we make?  What is our purpose?  Our intention?  Our hopes? Our dreams?  

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The final version between you and I was Smoking Weed Alone Version One Million.  The chorus ended up being your idea, but I was the one who suggested we sing it as a duet. A Call and Answer. It was full of the questions we’d been asking ourselves all these years. At least that was my interpretation of your lyrics.   Whether it’s choosing to smoke weed, or skip school, or play music for a living, or write a book, or live in the city, or get a dog, or stay in this band, I’m perpetually wondering.  But ultimately, I’m here and there’s nowhere else to go.  If it’s a choice, it don’t really feel like it.  But I’m glad.  

-Tegan

PS Thanks so much to all of you for subscribing and coming on this journey with us as we released songs from Crybaby. The album is out at the end of this week! Please go stream Smoking Weed Alone. Hope you enjoyed the demos. Thanks to each and every single one of you. ❤️