Last year, the New Zealand power-pop heroes released Expert In A Dying Field, one of the best albums of 2022. Today, they’re back with “Watching The Credits,” a loosie that was recorded during the sessions for that LP. It’s about bandleader Elizabeth Stokes’ fixation on the how-to of making movies: “I spend all day putting out fires/ Listening to choirs singing/ The end is nearing,” she sings. “And I spend all night cutting up edits/ Watching the credits to find direction/ In my existence.”

“For a long time, I didn’t really like watching movies, but I did like learning about movies,” Stokes explains. “Podcasts, articles, YouTube videos, behind the scenes clips, critical analysis. I’d read the Wikipedia plot synopses instead of watching the movie though.” She continued:

I’ve since got over this weird behaviour (mostly) and now consider myself a “movie person” who enjoys actually watching movies.

My relationship with music has gotten strange over the last few years. I think now that it’s my job I associate it with work, which is something I don’t love. Maybe I was drawn to absorbing content about a creative medium that had some things in common with music, but didn’t feel so existential.

Making a movie with hundreds of people seems like such a huge herculean effort compared to making an album with your band.

Long story short, I think I blurted all of that absorbed content out into this quite silly song. We recorded it as part of the 3rd album, but swapped it out last as it didn’t feel like it really fit.

Listen below.

The Beths also star in a new Tiny Desk Concert for NPR today, and you can watch that too:

“Watching The Credits” is out now via Carpark.