Next month, Cincinnati trio Leggy are releasing a new album, Let Me Know Your Moon. They announced it with “Eden” last month, and today they’re sharing another new track from it, “Taffy.” It’s a clamoring swirl, drums slamming as the song skitters into its central conceit of a love shriveling over time: “So you can stay but I never ‘made’ you stay,” Veronique Allaer, her words slip-sliding into wordy reflections of self-doubt. The whole song teeters between harsh and melodic, and it sounds pretty great.

Allaer expanded on the song’s history and construction in a press release:

Taffy was first performed back in 2016 but we have re-wrote and re-worked it so many times. The only lyric that survived from the song’s genesis til recording was the very first line I wrote for it ‘Can’t you tell that it scares me when you say you will do anything for me and I can eat you like a saltwater taffy?’ That was inspired by an actual text I received from someone I had been casually seeing and it scared the heck out of me.

The chorus is about knowingly staying in an unhealthy relationship : “so you can stay but i never ‘made’ you stay, it can’t be worse than the cigarettes and drugs you smoke, and i can stay but you never ‘made’ me stay” … implying you can keep going back to the same situation, but eventually it’s on you to stand up for yourself and demand the type of love that you need. (It can be so hard!!!) The bridge is emotionally charged – the line “we both know that that “I love you” didn’t count yesterday morning” is fucking painful to sing because it literally was inspired by a dwindling relationship where you both used to say “I Love You” all the time and then you both start saying it less and less and you both know it but pretend like it’s not happening… such a sad way to go.

Listen below.

Let Me Know Your Moon is out 3/8 via Sheer Luck Records. Pre-order it here.