While some people are having a Brat summer and bumping “365” by Charli XCX, others are keeping things very demure and very cutesy with Waxahatchee’s “365” from her latest album, Tiger Blood. The indie musician performed the record during her latest appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live, with an introduction from special guest host Jeff Goldblum.
Waxahatchee delivered the emotive song with a four-piece backing band, her sharp vocals slicing through the largely acoustic sonic backdrop. “The way I’ve approached the last couple records is finding personalities that I love, or that I’m gravitating towards, bringing them into the fold, and trying to form this intimate bond as we make the record,” the artist, whose real name is Katie Crutchfield, toldRolling Stoneearlier this year.
Her process resulted in a more mellowed out sound, refined to reflect where she is in both her life and her art. “When I was young, everything was so turned up to 10, there was so much chaos and drama,” she said. “Where I fell on the emotional spectrum was so black and white. In my thirties, I exist in this gray area all the time.”
She added: “You get sturdier. Maybe that’s the thing. And that doesn’t mean that you don’t have tons of problems. But the way that you approach them is just different.” Tigers Blood was released in March as Crutchfield’s sixth studio album under the moniker of Waxahatchee. “365” is the third single from the album, following “Bored” and “Right Back to It.”
“365” initially began as a song for Wynona Judd, but Waxahatchee ultimately decided to keep it. “I was in that phase where it was early to start working on another record for myself, and I was writing all kinds of stray melodies that became my Plains songs and the El Deafo songs,” she said. “And ‘365,’ I sat down at the piano and started playing it, and I was hearing Wy’s voice. But then, really, more than the words being personal, the melody started to take on a different shape than I was expecting. There are all these parts where it gets really high, and it’s kind of all over the place. And that moment, very quickly, I was like — I think this is for me. I should explore this as a Waxahatchee song.”
