Rosie Tucker has unveiled a stunning cover of Jeffrey Lewis’ “Arrow,” taken from his 2003 album with his brother Jack and Anders Griffen, It’s the Ones Who’ve Cracked That the Light Shines Through. Tucker released a new single “Brand New Beast” earlier this year, which follows their 2019 album Never Not Never Not Never Not.
“Arrow” became a favorite at their live shows, and ever since, fans have been asking Tucker for a recorded version of the song. The original from NYC anti-folk musician and comic book artist Jeffrey Lewis is a minimal lo-fi rock track, marked by anxiously delivered vocals while Tucker’s rendition is far more vivacious. It’s a bubbly, driving cover whose energy mirrors the urgency and paranoia of this incredibly underrated gem.
Tucker says of the cover:
For me it’s a song of disassociation, born in the uncanny space where the onslaught of time bends beneath the weight of present circumstances. Consider the crap on the nightstand: at once innocent and sinister, it towers over the apartment, the building, the whole city around it, if you believe in the city at all. The song’s speaker struggles to square his solipsistic impulses with knowledge of the wider world, collapses into a flurry of questions before ascending to sleep, where he will certainly dream alone. Wolfy produced, mixed and played bass on the version we’re putting out now and I think she did an uncanny job of catching whatever it was we were bringing to the stage. I hope people like our version but I’d be just as pleased if they hated it and started listening to Jeffrey Lewis instead.
Listen to “Arrow” below.
