"Complications" is a complicated song for us. It’s a complicated arrangement and dang if there aren’t some tongue tangling twisters to get through as well. It’s also a complicated theme and one that we’re still working out. But allow us us to tell you a bit of a backstory.
We started writing this song a couple years ago when we were “vacationing” with a friend’s family. “Vacationing” is a loose term for us, because it looks pretty similar to our everyday life; we’re staying in our camper, likely in some picturesque spot where there are tourists and other people milling about, and we’re probably playing a show somewhere nearby so that we can afford to “vacation.” The big difference this time was that our buddy was around and he’d come into our camper where he had stashed a bottle of whiskey and we’d pour him a drink and commiserate with him about how hard it is to spend time with family when you’re trying to be a grown up. Turns out it was difficult for him, because as much as he was independent of his family and was off doing grown up things, he was part of this family dynamic where he was still a kid and his parents were still the grown ups. “Trust us, we’ve been there,” we’d say and pour ourselves a glass of whiskey as we recounted our own experiences. We were having a great time, but then, it wasn’t our family.
And so we left our buddy and his family to play a show and as she drove, Mallory sang “…if I had a little more patience, and you had a little more therapy…” and by the time we got to the gig two hours away we had the makings of a song. It was a song about wishing for a better relationship with your parents, and about running away to CA in your daddy’s truck, about what is expected of you as a girl, as a woman, and about the ways people fix their complicated lives by complicating them further.
Like we said, it’s complicated.
For more family drama, go visit our Spotify playlist, Family Complications.