Song of the Week: ‘Witherby’

I’d never heard of birthdayboy, but was immediately hooked by the band’s description of their music being “bedroom pop but the bedroom is kinda dirty.” I’ve always been obsessed with bedroom pop. I think a lot of that has to do with the subgenre’s often personal and meditative nature feeling like the spiritual successor to the indie songwriter fare I adored growing up. On that note, birthdayboy did not disappoint. 

There’s a nostalgic, knowing nature to many of the band’s synth-forward songs, but the group’s stellar grasp of melody and texture is what really shines through. Take in “Black Plague,” if you need an example. But it’s a stellar line in the slick, playfully autotuned “Tamagotchi,” highlights that sense of humorous, detached nostalgia: “Like a movie, you’ll stay 20 while I grow up and owe 30 grand for dropping out of Uni.”  

birthdayboy, “Witherby”: The band’s latest single is both magnetic and delicate. It’s a song that inspires you to bounce along but to do so with your eyes closed. Listening to it, I felt that sense of nostalgia stir up again. It was bittersweet, but serenely hopeful.  

But it wasn’t until I watched the accompanying video, which is replete with cellphone-filmed scenes of unbridled youthful joy – dancing in costumes with friends, kissing dogs, shooting a bubble gun at a party – that “Witherby,” really hit me. The whole package feels like a song mourning the present, like a writer grasping at their youth, knowing full well that it’s finite.  

That interpretation may be (probably is?) completely off-base. After all, is there anyone at risk of mistakenly drawing tortured nostalgia from a song than a 34-year-old writer very actively grappling with the continued and impending loss of their own youth? AKA – me. Probably not.  

But that’s the beautiful thing about art – it’s up for interpretation. The very best art can communicate a million potent things to a million different people. That “Witherby,” could communicate something that weighty to anyone in such a compact, pleasant package feels like the real feat. 

Like what you hear? Check out birthdayboy on Sunday, May 25, at Sodar Bar. 

Do you have a “Song of the Week” suggestion? Shoot us an email and a sentence or two about why you’ve been bumping this song lately. Friendly reminder: all songs should be by local artists!