Nation of Language have shared ‘A Word & A Wave’, the latest offering from their forthcoming album A Way Forward. The track follows previous singles ‘Across That Fine Line’, ‘Wounds of Love’, and ‘This Fractured Mind’. Check out a lyric video for it below.
“I was thinking a lot about simple social gestures and how randomly important they can be in key moments,” vocalist Ian Devaney explained in a statement about the new song. “How empowering it can feel when someone remembers your name; how slighted you can feel when someone you only kind-of know passes by without acknowledgment.” He continued:
The song is a kind of vignette on someone who desperately wants to be the one that makes everyone feel good and has in turn neglected themself. Trying as hard as they can to be there for people who are barely in their lives, hoping that this will bring meaning and fulfilment, when it really just ends up leaving them emotionally spent and scattered.
When writing the song, I kept finding myself imagining this person living in Portland, Maine. It’s never mentioned in the lyrics, but I found myself wishing I could have conveyed the rest of the scene I pictured – a warmly lit room on a calm overcast evening in a small coastal city. When it came time to make the video I saw our chance and decided we would journey up there and follow that vision as much as we could.
A Way Forward, Nation of Language’s sophomore album, is out November 5.
