The Worst Song in the World: Swimming Bell discuss the song that makes them “feel physically ill”
For art to make you “physically ill” is almost impressive. It’s a trait that takes the mind back to Brass Eye and other satirical skits documenting culture gone awry. But for Swimming Bell, it is an everyday fear that they have to live with because they can never be sure when they’ll next be in a grocery store and be sorely confronted by a stinking pop bout of nausea.
Swimming Bell are fresh from delivering their latest album, Charlie, a classic piece of Laurel Canyon folk rock that has you loudly proclaiming things like, ‘I fucking love slide guitar’ on public transport, gathering many sus looks from fellow citizens. However, if you were to lend them your headphones for a mere moment, they’d be doing much the same.
It’s only a week or so old, but it’s an album people will definitely like, seemingly made with folks with functional ears in mind. It doesn’t ask for much and gives a lot in return. In an ideal world, we would all be able to say the same about Christmas songs. After all, they are designed with pleasing the public at large in mind. But sadly, Swimming Bell’s Katie Schottland feels something went drastically wrong on that front when it comes to ’12 Days of Christmas’ by The Birds and the Bee.
“Recently, I was at Ace Hardware (one of my favourite places), and it was just before Christmas,” Schottland explains. “I was thoroughly enjoying the lovely Christmas displays and feeling quite cosy, when all of a sudden this strange rendition of ‘12 Days of Christmas’ came on the speakers.” And it all goes rapidly downhill from there.
As Schottland continues: “It was unlike anything I’d ever heard before. My guts started to feel like they were being pulled in all directions. I had a visceral reaction to it. Every time the song would modulate or change keys, I would stop in my tracks and listen with confusion. The Ace Hardware folks probably thought I was a little drunk.”
So, in this regard, if art is meant to make you feel something, then the intoxicating mania of this sonic mess was working. “It affected me so much that I kind of became obsessed with it, sharing the song with people to see if it also made them feel physically ill,” she continues. “Other people, like my bandmate and my mom, had similar reactions, so I knew it wasn’t just me.”
Indeed, the song does seem otherworldly. It’s almost like listening to France Gall while being lobotomised. This does not seem like the sort of thing the LA-based pop duo behind it would intentionally look to create, imbuing it with a sense of mystery. However, this did not do anything to quell the dry-heaving mind of Schottland, her bandmates, or her family.
“It just modulates so much that my mind and body feel like they’ve been on a roller coaster,” she explains. “So, I don’t know if ‘hate’ is the right word (I hate using that word), but more like tremendous unease and discomfort, and not in the way that makes you grow as a person. It is a wild ride of a song.” And it may well be the most damningly effective piece of choleric media in existence, no doubt fated to somehow be weaponised by the CIA in the near future.
