Strawberry Runners – “Breakup 2”

Strawberry Runners – “Breakup 2”

Next month, Emi Night is releasing their self-titled debut full-length as Strawberry Runners, which arrives six years after their In The Garden, In The Night EP. We’ve heard “Circle, Circle” and “Look Like This” from it already, and today Night is sharing the album’s third and final single, “Break Up 2.”

“I wrote this song one night when I was staying with family during a breakup,” Night said in a statement. “I’ve always felt a little vulnerable about this one, but it’s a reminder to listen to your intuition and be honest with yourself and others. It wasn’t intended for sharing when I wrote it—I was ruminating on the hard conversations my ex and I had been having. The lyrics begin the way most of my serious conversations do: on another subject—in this case, dreams.”

Listen to it below.

Night’s full statement:

For months before the breakup I’d been having these dreams where I was in situations that made me feel so small and spineless. While I was at my family’s place, I realized I was having those dreams because I knew something was off in that relationship but I was resistant to ending it. I started to wonder—how did I become the kind of person who knows one thing and believes another?

In the song I break down what happened, oscillating between feeling angry/defensive and embarrased/sorry for my ex. In the end, the situation was so bewildering; I realized there was no clarity or satisfaction I could gain from thinking about the past or blaming someone else for what went wrong. I just knew that moving forward I had to listen more closely to my intuition.

Months later, I felt bold enough to drop the voice memo recording into a playlist of new songs that I sent to the band. We ended up working on it and it was one of the songs we recorded in the initial session at Headroom. We re- worked it last year and finished it up at Big Nice after I recorded the vocals at home. Michael Cormier-O’Leary arranged this final version and gave it a new life.

Strawberry Runners is out 8/25 via Duper Moon Records.

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