‘St Purple and Green’, grief, and Wolf Alice’s most “ambitious” song
In the early stages of Visions of a Life, Wolf Alice frontwoman Ellie Rowsell had a lot on her mind. In the midst of touring with Alt-J across Europe, while writing new material, Rowsell’s mind wasn’t just filled with thoughts of which crowd they were playing to next: it was also comforted by the strange outlook on life and death of her grandmother, Jean.
For a record that turned out to be “pretty varied”, ‘St Purple and Green’ was a good place as any to start. When listened to from start to finish, the song feels different to those that come before it, offering a perspective that centres around ruminating on grief in an almost fantastical, ethereal way. This is mainly achieved through Rowsell’s vocals over the guitar distortion, which together feel especially tense and unsettling in the broader chaos.
The muse for the song, Rowsell’s grandmother, was a “chatty, eccentric character” with dementia and would often sing to her about a made-up place called “purple and green”. Although it didn’t make any sense at the time, something about it stuck with Rowsell, plus the idea that her grandmother wasn’t afraid of death but “rather quite excited about it”.
Reflections on life and death are a common recurrence in Wolf Alice songs. Across The Clearing, tracks like ‘Midnight Song’ see Rowsell singing about mortality and being the “death of the party”, with lyrics like, “After I’m gone, sing one for me”. In ‘Play It Out’, she places herself in the spotlight with more purpose, not just physically as the band’s leading force, but also the struggles in her own life, like ageing and the passage of time, and what it means to still be figuring herself out in a chaotic industry.
In ‘St Purple and Green’, she proves that she was never afraid to tackle subjects that “terrify” her, like death and the inevitability of it, but she presents this as something more typically Rowsell-esque and dreamlike with light, airy vocals and lyrics about the heartwrenching experience of losing someone whose words left a lasting mark.
“You might be changing, but you’re still there,” she sings in the intro, “And you’re still my nana.” She continues, expressing that she hopes her grandmother gets “to the place you’ve seen” – her fictional “purple and green” paradise – saying it’s the place she’d get “given her crown” and that she’s the “smartest woman that was ever around”.
Sonically, the song feels a little like an unpredictable whirlwind of clashing sounds and arrangements – one moment you’re lulled into a calm, laidback groove that feels more fitting to the song’s message, and the next, there’s a headier atmosphere that brings an unexpected air of unease… It’s the kind of volatility that has come to define their later material, when Rowsell’s voice and the accompanying sounds often feel like they’re at odds, but in a charming, almost experimental way.
At the time, Rowsell was aware of how big an undertaking the song would be. After all, she said herself that it was one of the most “ambitious” songs they’ve ever made, mainly because there was so much at play. The fantastical element arrived when drummer Joel Amey added the “mellotron voices to the latter half of the song”, which sounded to Rowsell a bit like “dark and twisted water fairies luring sailors into the sea”.
Due to its unconventional nature, they also had to do a bit of convincing to those around them that it was worth working on in the studio. In the end, however, it ended up being a complete Wolf Alice staple – one that not only revealed the deeper parts of Rowsell’s personal life and relationship with her grandmother, but also her ability to transform such complex reflections into timeless musical art.
