The Ruby Suns are an indie/pop group from New Zealand. They formed in 2004 … Read Full Bio ↴The Ruby Suns are an indie/pop group from New Zealand. They formed in 2004 when Californian-born Ryan McPhun moved to Auckland and started playing in several bands such as The Brunettes and The Tokey Tones.

'Fight Softly' is the third album by New Zealand's pop masters The Ruby Suns. Ryan McPhun (their prime mover) has the kind of voracious musical mind that cites as equal influences '80s/'90s New Jack Swing and modern Angolan kuduro, Fleetwood Mac and Britney Spears, Brazilian tropicalia and Argentinean cumbia. He's the kind of diligent, meticulous soul that spends days hunched over a laptop in a tiny rented studio in Auckland, NZ just to perfect a sequenced drum track (mission accomplished). And Fight Softly is the kind of head-spinning combination of big-picture vision and sumptuous detail that only comes from an artist with an urgent need to express all the stuff he's seen. And you can dance to it!

California-born (and NZ citizen) McPhun took childhood trips to New Zealand and finally made Auckland home in 2003. Though he soon started playing with Kiwi indie darlings The Brunettes, he'd been making his own music for years—four-track bedroom stuff that mixed his faraway vocals with effects-laden guitar, synths, and all manner of field-recorded samples. With his own new band, Ryan McPhun and The Ruby Suns, McPhun recorded and released his first album for NZ label Lil' Chief Records. By the time its follow-up, Sea Lion, was ready, the foreshortened Ruby Suns had gained a college following in New Zealand and toured Australia with The Shins and the UK with Field Music, among others. The album came out on Sub Pop in early 2008 and landed on various best-of lists that year.

And for a few summer months The Ruby Suns landed in Seattle. There they played Sub Pop's not-so-humble 20th anniversary festival and began work on Fight Softly. "Mingus and Pike" is about their temporary Victorian abode and its happy-go-lucky pit bull mascot Mingus; “Cranberry” captures a day trip to Cranberry Lake, a dream of a swimming-hole 90 minutes from Seattle on Fidalgo Island. The former is beat-buzzed bedroom R&B swathed in reverb while the latter is part tequila-drunk marching band, part Eastern Bloc candy rave.

In the spring of '09, The Ruby Suns took a whirlwind tour of Europe that included 10 days at a friend's spread outside Szeged, Hungary. McPhun and friends Bevan Smith (Signer, Aspen, Skallander) and Matthew Mitchell (Skallander, Muriel Tsains) spent their time devouring veggie pizzas and jamming, improv-style, in an old farmhouse. These sessions didn't make it to Fight Softly as-is but were a springboard into new ideas McPhun brought back to his Auckland studio.

Like "Closet Astrologer," a song that started in Hungary and concluded, vaporous and Vangelis-like, in New Zealand. Or "How Kids Fail," a multi-movement epic that sounds like a post-techno hymn and nods to How Children Fail, John Holt's groundbreaking book on the general out-of-touch-ness of the public education system. "Haunted House" bounces on a pitch-shifted vocal sample and bubbly synth line,
simultaneously lush and minimal. "Cinco" and "Dusty Fruit" share a similar digital-tropical soul.

This is where Fight Softly veers from the path set by its predecessor. Thematically, it's not as wide-eyed or lighthearted, picking apart the relationships faced as we pass through the world—with our surroundings, each other, ourselves. Sonically, it remains as beat-centric, though these beats are deliciously artificial—stretched and compacted and distorted beyond recognition. Melodies are scuzzy and digital, not many guitars strummed or basses plucked. McPhun's soulful upper-register croon, swallowed into the mix, replaces group chants and full-throated singalongs. Rather than an album of clearly-drawn influences, Fight Softly is a unique, inscrutable synthesis, more itself than anything else.

Dramatikk
The Ruby Suns Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

I won’t be here for long
Songs made a pass of it
Although it’s not past the time
As if it’s just a break
In our life once over again

I heard that she won’t settle
With a relationship

Then let’s not forget what she wants
To spend some time by myself for once
To live without a worry
About to narrow it so slow
And the touch of forgiveness
To the edge of depression

Drama
You know
We’ve had enough of your drama
Don’t give me that

I heard that she won’t settle
With a relationship
Then let’s not forget what she wants
To spend some time by myself for once
To live without a worry
About to narrow it so slow
And the touch of forgiveness
To the edge of depression

Drama
We’ve had enough of your drama

I got my arms wide
Keep my arms wide
Instead I see everything

Drama
I know you can’t pray for that drama
You can play with your drama
We’ve had enough of your drama
I can’t handle your drama
I can’t help but dream about drama

Believe the energy’s drama
Just let me love without drama

Overall Meaning

The Ruby Suns’ song “Dramatikk” speaks to the frustration and exhaustion caused by drama in relationships. The lyrics convey a sense of weariness and exasperation, as though the singer has had enough of dealing with the complications that come with relationships. The line “I won’t be here for long” suggests a sense of transience and impermanence, as though the singer is on the verge of leaving the situation altogether. The line “songs made a pass of it” suggests that music has helped the singer process their emotions and cope with the drama, but that it has not completely resolved the issue.

The refrain of “We’ve had enough of your drama” emphasizes the sense of frustration and annoyance, as though the singer is speaking directly to the other person and telling them to stop causing problems. The idea of “the touch of forgiveness to the edge of depression” suggests that forgiving someone who has caused a lot of drama can take a toll on one’s mental health, and that it can be difficult to strike a balance between being forgiving and setting healthy boundaries.

Overall, “Dramatikk” is a song that reflects the challenges of navigating relationships and the toll that drama can take on one’s emotional wellbeing.

Line by Line Meaning

I won’t be here for long
I'll only be around for a short while

Songs made a pass of it
Songs capture experiences and move on

Although it’s not past the time
Even though time hasn't run out yet

As if it’s just a break
It feels like just a temporary pause

In our life once over again
In our lives, this could happen again

I heard that she won’t settle
I heard that she won't commit to a relationship

With a relationship
She won't commit to being with one person

Then let’s not forget what she wants
We shouldn't forget what she desires

To spend some time by myself for once
She wants to have some alone time

To live without a worry
She wants to live carefree

About to narrow it so slow
She doesn't want to rush things