The opening chords of “Running Dry” take your mind back to an exact place in childhood. You’re on the swing, watching the world move up and down. Then comes the main drop. A malaise of guitar and synth that feel reminiscent of the hazy malaise from the early 2000s. One can’t help but sort of be reminded of the guitar break from the Smashing Pumpkins’ “Mayonnaise”. But it would be reductive to compare this track to the imaginations of other artists. While it does strike a nerve to yesterday’s time (a trend that has been milked dry—no pun intended) the track is strong enough to stand on its own two feet, with an intent purpose.
“Running Dry” is a confession, one a Catholic may make to a priest, a child who’s been caught stealing, or an addict finally claiming that they do in fact have a problem. The track feels like a time warp of one looking at all their past mistakes through a flip book, or a projector playing small snippets of their life from an old VHS camera. Not knowing the exact point where everything went wrong, but acknowledging that the snowball has become too big to take just one jab.
The main guitar run with added synth and the constant in-your-face steady drum is what sucks you into the feeling of being in a time warp. If you can’t visualize this, remember times when you’ve driven through a tunnel late at night, and the yellow ceiling lights blur into one. From the opening line “I’ll settle on this truth”—what a galling thing to do. You can feel the artist’s attempts to seek redemption at whatever weighs on him. Perhaps that is why the track meets us with that familiar nostalgic malaise. Trying to go back and put together the pieces. “I try and leave it behind.” This track isn’t an attempt at making everything okay, but maybe the start at trying to stop the ball rolling. It’s wiping your tears, laughing at the mess you’ve made and taking another sip of your warm beer in hand. “Funny how I just lost my mind”. One can’t help but think of the similarity to the lyrics “Isn’t it rich?” from the classic song “Send In The Clowns”.
The constant synth set to an even rise and fall of the melodic guitar also paint out this journey. Shaw is up and down, then up again, then down some more. But it ends on a note that’s slightly up. The point isn’t where Shaw ends up on his journey. It’s that he had the cajones to obliterate himself with a heartbreaking sensitivity paired with a brutal bleak reality. We don’t know what his problem is. The track serves as a mirror to look inwards. The track can be used as a tool to face ourselves with the same dauntless obliteration Shaw had to courage to do. May he continue to push himself to weaponize his self awareness and vulnerability as a saving grace. Hopefully so, because if that’s the case, we’ll be in for more tracks such as this: Trudging forward into what has been avoided for far too long, staring it dead in the face.
Take a listen to “Running Dry” below:
Written by Rachel Perkins
