Brat summer’s over. It’s time for Mazzy Star fall.
Few know the term “Mazzy Star fall”, but I’ve lived it for the past 3 years. It’s become a bit of a ritual for me. The night when I feel like fall has officially come upon me, I listen to “Fade Into You”, and for the rest of the fall, I rotate through their discography, on top of whatever I happen to be listening to that year. For some reason, I have found no music that better matches the brisk air and gray skies of autumn than Mazzy Star.
In 2021 I saw the below post on Instagram from @sadbabecentral with the caption “it’s that time of year again,” and since then I haven’t found an image that captures the melancholy of Mazzy Star Fall so perfectly:
Their music really does feel like smoking a cigarette by yourself (probably during the 15-minute break of a job you don’t like), feeling neither happy nor sad about life (but if you had to pick one, sad), and getting pissed at the cold weather (but giving up about caring cause there’s nothing that can be done about it), all while living in this awkward, gray time of the year.
So far, Mazzy Star Fall 2024 has gone as strong as ever! Here are a few of my favorite tracks I have had in rotation this year:
“Fade Into You” – I mean, this one’s just gotta be here. It has considerably more streams than all their other songs for a reason. It lands in my rotation every fall. Just with the opening lyrics, “I wanna hold the hand inside you,” Hope Sandoval strikes a chord in my heart every time. I have spent many a fall night lying in bed falling asleep to this song. Like all sad music, it just hurts so good. This song is an indie classic for a reason. It’s enshrined in the minds of hopeless romantics and music connoisseurs. It’s a song I will probably hear my whole life because it’s just that good.
“Quiet, The Winter Harbor” – Probably my favorite song of Mazzy Star fall 2024, “Quiet, The Winter Harbor,” provides ample heartache. It came out 28 years after the band’s debut, but still carries the 90s charm that I find so distinct about their early records. When the drums come in on this song, it kills me every time. The song’s narrative has poetic, nautical imagery about wanting someone; “Save me \ ‘Cause I’m still sinking \ You’ve got a harbor \ Close to the shore,” “Your thoughts are swimming \ I’d like to see them.” It’s a sad song that makes me think Sandoval must have had a big heart to endure 28 years of singing about lost lovers
“Cry, Cry” – “Cry, Cry” is from the classic Mazzy Star album (with the best album cover) Among My Swan. This iconic Mazzy song that was featured in the Beetlejuice movie is about…yep! Yearning! Whether it’s yearning over a lost lover, an aspired lover, or a romantic fantasy, Sandoval truly can yearn like no other. This song does have some nice personal lyrics as well, as she sings of being brought to tears after driving her ex back home into the city after he/she got into a fight, as well as crying after many other situations.
“Give You My Lovin” – The track I’ve been running the most from their debut album, She Hangs Brightly, has definitely been “Give You My Lovin.” It provides a catchy, almost happy sound, and I find it quite reminiscent of Velvet Underground songs like “Pale Blue Eyes” and “Candy Says.” It’s a love song where Sandoval can’t help falling for someone who might not be the best for her. It’s a tale as old as time and she sings it with the mindless passion of an innocent lover. It’s one of the rarer times in Mazzy Star’s discography where Sandoval is willing to lean into the lighthearted euphoria of love that comes when having a crush instead of exploring the tender sadness that comes in turbulent love.
“Halah” – This track is another She Hangs Brightly standout. It is quite catchy. The jangly percussion and mellow vocals are reminiscent of Courtney Barnett and Faye Webster and hold up just as well in this age of music. “Halah” is a great opener to the album that follows. It establishes the 90s slowcore sound that the band became known for while introducing the classic Mazzy Star lyrical themes. Instrumentally this song is quite simple, never doing too much but still sounding interesting. Vocally, Sandoval once again ruminates about a lost lover, saying “Maybe I hold you to blame for all the reasons \ That you left” and “But just before I see that you leave / I want you to hold on to things that you said.”
“Common Burn” – My pick from Seasons of the Day, my least favorite Mazzy Star Album, is “Common Burn”. This song came out 23 years after the band’s debut and 17 years after their hiatus. It is a very singer-songwriter-sounding song with some nice harmonicas and vibraphones that add a nice acoustic touch. Sandoval talks about the “common burn” she has received after being left by her lover. The song becomes emotional when you start to wonder if Hope ever left a relationship on her own terms. How many times must one be left for the burn to become “common?”
Nothing about Mazzy Star’s music has ever felt super musically unique to me, but it always has felt very specific and special. Lap steels, acoustic guitars, clean reverb-loaded electric guitars, simple 4/4 or 6/8 rhythms, an unexpected instrument that works perfectly, calm vocals; there’s almost a formula to their music that can work so many ways while always sounding good. Sandoval’s lyrics are never too hard to understand either, but each word is important. Even down to capitalizing determiners like “the” and “on” in song titles, everything about her writing feels intentional and thought out. The cadence, the words, the voicing.
But when it gets too cold, and there’s no more leaves to fall off the trees, and Mazzy Star fails to carry that poignancy that rings through so beautifully in the fall, I’ll hang up the records and listen to some Phoebe Bridgers Christmas songs hoping to emulate the perfect pair that is Mazzy Star and Fall. But it just won’t hit the same. Maybe I just like the slowcore genre, the simple yet relatable lyrics of grief, or the quietness of their music; quiet like the fall nights any midwesterner knows all too well. Who knows why I always come running back every fall? Perhaps questioning why this would be futile. But as posts like @sadbabecentral’s have proven, this association is not peculiar only to me. I guess sometimes the only way to accept the monotony of the autumn days, while you miss the warmth of summer and anticipate the cold of winter, is with the simple songs of Mazzy Star.
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