A MARTÍNEZ, BYLINE: A new album from the band Big Thief takes on one of my favorite topics - getting older.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DOUBLE INFINITY")
BIG THIEF: (Singing) The butterflies on the summer breeze. The wildflowers sway with ease at the bridge of two infinities - what's been lost and what lies waiting.
MARTÍNEZ: Big Thief has a way of asking the big questions in life by focusing on the smallest details. The band has been around for over a decade and has picked up multiple Grammy nominations in rock and alternative music. "Double Infinity" is their sixth studio album. And with age, the trio is thinking about the passage of time. I spoke with Adrianne Lenker, Buck Meek and James Krivchenia.
Tell me about the title of the album, "Double Infinity," because the last time I remember even saying those two words in a sentence was when I told one of my granddaughters that I love you. And then she said, I love you infinity. And then I said, I love you double infinity. And then she asked me what that meant, and I couldn't have an answer. I was like, I don't know. I don't know what that means. So what does that mean in the context of this album?
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTIST #1: I guess that's what it means - for me, at least, the idea that there's two infinities that can exist simultaneously, which is an analogue for, like, the potential for an infinite number of infinities to exist simultaneously. Like your infinite love for your granddaughter, your granddaughter's infinite love for you, which are maybe different things in some ways but the same in others, and they're existing in parallel. And just all the questions that that asks.
MARTÍNEZ: The song "Grandmother" - it's one that all three of you wrote together.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GRANDMOTHER")
BIG THIEF: (Singing) Grandmother, my mother.
MARTÍNEZ: And to me, the song "Grandmother" has worrying about the future in. Adrianne, how do you deal with that worry, if that's where that song was going?
ADRIANNE LENKER: That song is almost a conversation. Like, I feel like the grandmother is sort of worried. And the child is, like, consoling the grandmother in the song. Like, it's all right. Everything that happened happened. Sleep loose. Like, relax your body into the Earth. And also, maybe the grandmother is also the Earth. And it's just kind of, like, consoling the Earth or consoling the grandmother.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GRANDMOTHER")
BIG THIEF: (Singing) Going to turn it all into rock and roll. Going to turn it all into rock and roll.
LENKER: We're going to turn it all into rock and roll. We're going to transmute this energy and find a high frequency of love and recognize, like, the beauty and the gift of life.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "INCOMPREHENSIBLE")
BIG THIEF: (Singing) Incomprehensible.
MARTÍNEZ: In the song "Incomprehensible," Adrianne, you sing about aging. Aging and death are my two favorite topics to think about and talk about. But before we get into that, let's hear the song "Incomprehensible."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "INCOMPREHENSIBLE")
BIG THIEF: (Singing) In two days, it's my birthday, and I'll be 33. That doesn't really matter next to eternity.
MARTÍNEZ: You mention in the song that it's going to be your birthday, and you're 34 now, by the way. When you think about it not really mattering because it's next to eternity, what does that mean?
LENKER: Yeah. I think when you zoom out of whatever time is, you can't even see it. It's, like, microscopic, and yet the span of your own lifetime just feels so significant. I also think it's playing with this idea that I've had in my head since I was a child, which is that you're always a child even when you're old. And that next to mountains and great big old trees, next to the idea of infinity and eternity, what is something like an age in the span of a human life, you know?
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. I - do you think that we fear death too much?
LENKER: Oh, I feel like, as a collective, we are given reason to fear death and to kind of push it away and do anything we can to cover up the idea that we are all going to die. And I think that it's kind of what consumerism is kind of based on, is, like, playing upon that human fear.
MARTÍNEZ: Do you think that we are so afraid of dying that we don't remember to be grateful to be alive?
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTIST #2: I mean, for me, I feel myself always having to check back into that and sort of reminding myself how blessed I am. And, like, we can't figure it out. Everyone's been trying to figure it out forever. It's more like, how do you embrace this mystery and live a meaningful, actionable life within it without just being, like, totally afraid or just stuck.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HAPPY WITH YOU")
BIG THIEF: (Singing) I'm happy with you, happy with you.
MARTÍNEZ: The new album from Big Thief is called "Double Infinity." Adrianne Lenker, Buck Meek and James Krivchenia, thank you very much for the album and your time.
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTIST #2: Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTIST #1: Thank you.
LENKER: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HAPPY WITH YOU")
BIG THIEF: (Singing) Poison shame, poison shame, poison shame, poison. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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