When one typically thinks of a love song, one is often treated to two characters driven by their actions towards each other.
“Garden Song”, the latest song from “cinematic alt-pop” band The Spikes, digs beyond sometimes superficial qualities that love can have. The song is featured on the band’s new album First Light, which is out Friday, October 31.
“Garden Song is a classical love song. But it follows no narrative. No person or story,” says frontman and Rome, Italy native Iago Haussman. “The lyrics play with metaphors and feelings. In doing so, it feels more honest.”
“If you were in love and just wrote down ten of those feelings that you felt. Also, ten of the fears. Maybe this would be Garden Song. They are raw feelings, emotions, and senses, which the listener can adapt to their own life and love story.”
Haussman sought to capture those qualities in the music video for the song, with the help of his father, Michael Haussman, an acclaimed filmmaker who had previously worked on videos for well-known musicians including Madonna and Justin Timberlake.
You can watch the video, which SWT is excited to premiere, below:
It finds Haussman in a Roman café surrounded, as described by a press release, by faces of all ages and stories, celebrating a universal love without boundaries. It’s tender, offbeat, and profoundly human, a cinematic reflection of the LP’s core theme: finding light through darkness.”
Below, Haussman describes their goal for the video:
“We got a whole cross-section of real-life Italians from the Roman neighborhood where I grew up. From young to old. From Tattooed break dancers to old ladies playing bridge. I perform the song by simply walking into this real-life social club, which acts as a place to play cards, get a drink, or have dance lessons. I am a stranger here. Yet I plug in a mic and just sing. The music begins to move them in their own way—each different. But when you see the lyrics set against the different faces of different ages, the lyrics take on new meaning. Maybe in a way you did not think about before.”
Musically, the song encapsulates the album’s bigger picture. It has a theme of optimistic hope in a seemingly, at times, hopeless world.
“There is always hope in every song,” says Haussman. “I am always finding [a] beauty, even in tragedy and fear. The music is part of that entire feeling. It is more atmospheric and slightly escapist, but the lyrics are what tie it all together and give the whole thing power and reason. I don’t like to describe my music too much because it feels I am trying to find a reason why I did what I did. Rather than just enjoy it.”
According to the press release, “Across eight hauntingly crafted tracks, including the focus single, “Garden Song,” the LP explores the tension between chaos and clarity, pain and redemption, love and loneliness…First Light weaves together raw emotion, [and] poetic storytelling.”
You can follow their socials and listen to The Spikes at the links below:
The band’s website: Thespikes.org
Instagram: Instagram.com/the__spikes
Spotify: The Spikes on Spotify
YouTube: Youtube.com/@the__spikes
Apple Music: The Spikes on Apple Music
Joshua is co-founder of Scummy Water Tower. He’s freelanced for a variety of newspapers, magazines, and websites, including: Rolling Stone, The Boston Globe, Chicago Sun-Times, Guitar World, MTV News, Grammy.com, Chicago Magazine, Milwaukee Magazine, MKE Lifestyle, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, A.V. Club, SPIN, Alternative Press, Under the Radar, Paste, PopMatters, American Songwriter, and Relix. You can email him at josh@scummywatertower.com.
