The Yagas’ released their new album, Midnight Minuet and vocalist Vera Farmiga is here to break down each track.
THE CRYING ROOM
… is a song invitation to enter a sanctuary where the walls are velvet padded and the floors are damp. When everything just feels TOO MUCH - come on in and drop off your emotional luggage. Sob into the void for a single mega-chorus and leave with abstract mascara art on your cheeks and a tear-streaked smile. Go on in, I dare you. Don’t overthink it. Come into The Crying Room, unleash your inner drama queens and kings.
I AM
…This is a ditty about helping my Granny, “Baba Nadia,” glide through the great cosmic conga line of in-home hospice. Baba had Alzheimer’s. Helping her gather her trauma luggage of woe (being orphaned in Ukraine at a young age and surviving the torture of Russian occupation) and me giving her permission to glide into the afterlife and join our ancestors. It was…um, hard.
LIFE OF A WIDOW
…started out as Renn’s synths riff that he laid down coming out of anesthesia after a spinal fusion surgery. It turned into a song about a widow pirouetting through her angry grief, mourning like Ophelia. Her sorrow spills, she summons her lost love, chanting her mantra, “I want you now, I want you now” to a night sky of echoes. Her beloved deceased finally appears in the outro. Phew.
ANHEDONIA
…this one is about duh, Anhedonia. But not as a symptom, as a lover. The kinda lover who shows up uninvited, eats all your joy and some how you’re still asking them to stay. “Hey, ruin me again, Babe, I’m just gonna eat my cold Cheerios in the dark.” A love letter to feeling absolutely nothing. Feeling passionate about dispassion.
PENDULUM
…started off as Mark’s extreme guitar riffs turned into a story about perimenopausal mood swings and whiplash. A song about when your feelings are on a Cirque de Soleil-style pendulum swing. White-knuckle clinging to someone while you’re both swinging 100 hundred feet in the air. It’s about being both tender and deranged, very Yagas.
CHARADE
…this is when you realize your Someone is wearing a mask stitched from half-truths and practiced smiles. It’s a dance of deceit with your Someone who doesn’t realize YOU are the one actually leading.
BRIDLE
… is a harmonic rage song about the medieval torture device, the Scold’s Bridle, that straps your mouth shut when you are being too opinionated. It’s how loudmouths were silenced back in the day…with a face cage. It’s capital M-Metal, like literally, metal. Iron bars, bolts, a tongue plate depressor. Maybe that’s the Yagas sound…Bridlecore….
PULLOVER
… is a song about chaotic, breathless, nervous system attack topped with too much espresso and homegrown Buena Mulata hot pepper angst. If you know me, you understand that. It’s actually written about a significant anxiety attack I had when we signed up for an adult Rock Academy and Jason assigned me keys on The Night Ranger song, “Sister Christian” (ironically from their album called Midnight Madness. Ha.)
SHE’S WALKING DOWN
…started off with Renn’s synth sorcery. It migrated to me in an awful nightmare about my child being abducted. It’s a story where the woman is, yes, she’s walking down, but really she’s ascending. Into her power. Defiance, grief and escape, all written the very early morning after a debaucherous night of vodka and elderflower soda. Whatever.
MIDNIGHT MINUET
…is a song about waltzing with dead people. A ghostly little ballroom number where you spin with everyone you’ve ever loved and lost. 3/4 rhythm mortis meets rigor mortis. All spinning together, dancing barefoot amongst the graves. Yay.