“We’re fighting different wars”: Five Wolf Alice songs about emotional malaise
The worst kind of loss, without a doubt, is losing yourself, but not knowing why, how, or even the words to cover just how unsettling that kind of disassociation feels. The worst kind is the kind that hooks deep but manifests nowhere, like an unsettling shadow only you can see, or a glass screen that makes everything feel strangely distant and weirdly out of focus. It’s the part of that one Wolf Alice song that makes you want to scream: How! Can! I! Make! It! OK!
But the thing about malaise isn’t that it often feels awful (which it does). It’s that it also provides the perfect fodder for some of the greatest music, the kind that talks about that thing we all experience from time to time, but which evades easy description, or feels so inexplicably everywhere all at once that words could never capture it. But music, the kind that tackles this head-on in all its sinister glory, can give us the right amount of catharsis to believe we’re never really alone in our darkness, even if it feels that way.
And while this feeling (the one that swallows us whole and spits us out) grows day by day for some of us, only a few modern bands have been able to point directly at it, not only writing in a way that puts it all into focus but with music that actually sounds good, too. Wolf Alice might have always had that strangely indescribable allure that makes the music feel addictive even if it’s unclear why, but when it comes to indecipherable personal damage, they’re right there with you, too.
That said, the thing about malaise is that, by definition, it’s nothing and it’s everything. It’s nothing because we can’t see or describe it, but it’s everything because the moment it hits, it feels like nothing else exists except a strange feeling of displacement. And because of this ambiguity, it can appear in anything, or any situation, or anyone, which is what Wolf Alice seem to understand more than anyone. A simple breakup song? It’s there. A song about losing someone? It’s there, too. It’s there, no matter its disguises, in all of these songs.
Five Wolf Alice songs about malaise:
‘How Can I Make It OK?
You don’t really have to look very far to understand how much this song cuts deep. It also sounds tragic, tackling the fragility of feeling and taking risks while looking inward at our own inability to fix things, whether in our surroundings or for other people. It’s incredibly relatable because feeling uncertain is something that always comes naturally to us, but it’s also relatable because feeling stuck does, too.
These are reflected in the lyrics as Ellie Rowsell repeats the words, “How can I make it okay? I just want you to be happy,” and in the lines about living in fear not living at all, and how the person she addresses, in her eyes, “should not be left unsold”. Perhaps the most hard-hitting part is the frustrations of not knowing how, exactly, to make it OK, plus the relief that comes with admitting that maybe, you never will.
‘Don’t Delete The Kisses’
Most of us know what it feels like to be unsure of a situation, whether it’s difficult to pick up on emotional cues or whether someone else’s word choices have thrown us off. But most of us also know what it feels like to be confused in the early stages of a relationship, when certain things make us feel like they weren’t meant for us, even if they were.
In ‘Don’t Delete The Kisses’, this confusion comes through in a similar way to the chorus of ‘How Can I Make It OK?’, with Rowsell channelling her frustrations most explosively in the line: “What if it’s not meant for me?” But it’s also in the way she almost sounds like she’s rushing out the verses in a hushed, confessional voice that isn’t meant to be heard, unless what she wants is what the other person has to offer her.
‘Safe From Heartbreak’
We can never venture back to the past, but we can torture ourselves thinking about what it would be like had we not opened up our hearts or let ourselves trust others. In ‘Safe From Heartbreak’, Wolf Alice entertain the idea of never falling in love, the only benefit being never getting your heart broken. It comes from a place of hurt, of having someone betray you in one way or another, but it’s also the discomfort that comes with not being physically able to go back and stop it from happening.
At the same time, it’s a warning against doing it again, a protective stance against trusting someone enough to do with your heart what they will, or, at the very least, a temporary promise to yourself that you’ll never fall in love again if you know what’s good for you. Even if you know, deep down, that you will eventually. As a result, it’s the kind of malaise that you’re aware of when you know you’ll change your mind somewhere down the road.
‘Lipstick on the Glass’
When you have a mind and heart at odds, it can be difficult to work out what to do, even if we know which route we’ll take in the end. In ‘Lipstick on the Glass’, there’s cause for celebration, the kind that appears at the start of a relationship or after the decision to take someone back. But there’s also trepidation there, the kind that becomes a gateway to gaslighting yourself into believing your concerns are just meaningless.
“My body does deceive me / Just as did yours / Though we’re fighting different wars / In our ways,” Rowsell sings, tapping into the different perspectives of her and her partner, and how these differences can either pave the way for a successful romance or set up a different journey to heartbreak and disaster. The only way to know is to take the plunge and enjoy the euphoria of not knowing.
‘Silk’
A song more deeply rooted in the specifics of someone else’s life, namely Edie Sedgwick’s, ‘Silk’ is a gorgeous blending of worlds between mental anguish, the inevitability of disaster, and the beauty of living in your own tragedy, no matter what it is. These all become part of the bigger picture, representing the kind of dissociation that you can only know if you’ve lived in it yourself.
The kind of mindset the song asks you to get into is somewhat self-destructive and, at times, terrifying, but it’s also exceptionally fun and enticing, the kind that gives you an immense high in the moment but will likely mean something entirely different later. Or, as Rowsell puts it in the song, “There’s love that is a saviour, but that ain’t no love of mine / My love it kills me slowly, slowly, I could die!”
