On the second single from Waxahatchee’s forthcoming album, Ivy Tripp, Katie Crutchfield sings about that person who will mess with your brain before anything even happens. Know the type? The emotionally unavailable iceberg? They’re aloof, sexy and come off as super complicated. Hey, maybe that’s you even.
“Under a Rock” laments on the frustrations of trying to connect with that person while also refusing to get hurt in the process. Crutchfield mirrors that distance, putting on a front that’s as cool and collected as the person she is singing about. In reality, she’s not actually lamenting the “you” in the song. Instead, she’s mocking the facade while also admitting that she was once into it. Here, she makes the case that when you “build a brick wall around your cranium,” you’re going to miss out on some good stuff in life.
Even if she didn’t succeed in getting into that person’s head, hopefully “Under a Rock” succeeds in getting into yours. It bubbles with controlled honesty and pissed-off apathy while possibly being one of her most rock-sounding tracks to date. At just two minutes, it’s over much too soon. But what else is there to say really? In the end, it’s your loss not hers. No time for emotionally incompetent icebergs.