Wasner and Stack have been playing music together and apart in Baltimore, MD, and chose their name from the honorary state tree of Maryland. If Children is the culmination of many months of recording, polishing and perfecting to achieve what Any Given Tuesday best described as, “. .. . mingling in a room full of shoegaze, alt-country, folk, and noise, shaking hands, kissing cheeks, and making friends with everyone.” If Children is an exuberant debut – noisy and restrained in turn, Wye Oak describe their philosophy: "We'd like to think that if a song is good enough, it'll stand on its own regardless of how much noise you pile on top. On the other hand, we do like noise." Listen, and we think you will have to agree!
The droll tone and fleeting sweetness of a Yo La Tengo are cut into the more deeply textural concerns of shoegaze in the Baltimore group's work. It's an interesting alignment, given the contrast in senses of humor. But Wye Oak successfully shed tonnage from the latter without losing potency.
We Were Wealth
Wye Oak Lyrics
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I am living like a child now.
I wish, I want:
Giving myself everything
Fearing the release,
Keeping the peace
Say, for instance,
Sight unseen,
How is it that it speaks for me,
Borrowed never earned,
In debt from birth
Fill the days at any cost and spent your earnings,
Ease the losses
We were wealth and we were money,
Of the world and needing nothing
The opening lines of Wye Oak's song We Were Wealth depict a protagonist who, despite being an adult, is living like a child. This longing for the simplicity of youth is a common theme in music and literature. The subsequent lyrics, "Giving myself everything/Fearing the release/Keeping the peace," suggest a fear of letting go of the comforting routine that this sheltered lifestyle has cultivated. They want for nothing and are content with living in ignorance, but with a subsequent realization of the innate human desire to possess and collect.
The following stanza then details a hypothetical scenario in which the singer purchases an item sight unseen but is somehow able to reflect their desires and needs back to them. This somewhat surreal image fits into the album-wide theme of the human longing for connection and the desire to find oneself. This is followed by the lines "Borrowed never earned/In debt from birth" which highlight a sense of indebtedness to society that exists regardless of personal successes or failures.
As the song progresses, the lyrics "Fill the days at any cost and spent your earnings, Ease the losses" suggest a willingness to sacrifice security and stability for pleasure and entertainment. The subsequent chorus is the crux of the song, wherein the singers realize that they were, in fact, wealthy and content with their lives in a way that is now unattainable.
Line by Line Meaning
Though I am grown,
Despite being an adult,
I am living like a child now.
I am living recklessly and without responsibility.
I wish, I want:
I constantly desire more.
Giving myself everything
I indulge and satisfy all my material desires.
Fearing the release,
I am afraid of letting go of my obsessive need for possessions.
Keeping the peace
I try to maintain a sense of calm and order in my life.
Say, for instance,
For example,
I pay money for an object
I spend money on material things,
Sight unseen,
Without even seeing or experiencing the object beforehand,
How is it that it speaks for me,
How is it that my possessions define me,
Borrowed never earned,
I have never truly earned anything, only borrowed or bought it.
In debt from birth
I entered this life owing something, whether it be to society or something else.
Fill the days at any cost and spent your earnings,
I am willing to do whatever it takes to acquire more things, even if it means depleting my resources.
Ease the losses
I try to mitigate any losses or disappointments in my life through material possessions.
We were wealth and we were money,
We used to equate our worth with our possessions.
Of the world and needing nothing
We used to think we had everything we needed because of our worldly possessions, but now we know better.
Lyrics © ROUGH TRADE PUBLISHING, Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.
Written by: JENNIFER LYNN WASNER
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind