Why her song ‘The Avenues’ makes singer Bathe Alone a bit uncomfortable

“The Avenues is an outdoor shopping mall in Cumming,” Crone explains. “It got renamed the Collection about 10 years ago, but everyone around the area from back then still refers to it as the Avenues. Lyrically, the song is about how I was unfollowing my ex-husband on Shared Locations right after we separated, and I saw that he was at the Avenues at 3 in the morning.”

Credit: Photo by Anna Griffith

Credit: Photo by Anna Griffith

“The Avenues” begins, sonically, as everyone imagines romance to begin: guilelessly dreamlike, softly suspended in the untarnished potential of cinematic meet-cutes, the kinds typically soundtracked by Slow Pulp or the Cranberries. Instruments swell, fade and cut out, until all we’re left with is Crone’s sobering realization, and then, the arm-pinch: reverie’s fractured shards, crashing down in a liberatory burst of squealing guitar that Crone summarizes as a stomach-drop.

“It was surprising and confirming at the same time, and I wanted the chorus to come in just as surprising.”

Tackling themes of desirability and violated trust, “The Avenues” is, musically and lyrically, one of Bathe Alone’s heaviest moments yet. Although its title isconfessionally literal, it’s the subtext of what isn’t said that makes “The Avenues” so heartbreakingly impactful, particularly in the song’s bridge, where guitar bends become bleep censors for fill-in-the-blank rhymes:

Yeah, I’m feeling sick

But I get it, gotta wet that —, shh

It’s just a game, a hunt

And to you, I’m a jealous little __, shh

Yeah, I remember the last look that you gave me

And I remember that the time that you --, shh

Yeah, I was blind to the warnings and abuse

But this time, I saw you at 3 in the morning

Collaborating on such intimate, grief-laden topics, particularly in such close proximity to the events that inspired them, can be salt or salve to a wound. It helps, then, that Crone’s producer, cowriter and bandmate Moon is also one of her closest friends.

Moon is an Atlanta-based musician, producer (Curtis Harding, Lunar Vacation, Rose Hotel) and founder of Scottdale-based Standard Electric Recorders Co. He met Crone during a recording session for one of her previous bands. Following one of these sessions, Crone approached Moon with a few of her solo demos. Moon was blown away by the material, and their collaborative friendship began to bloom.

While workshopping demos, Moon would often encourage Crone to pry deeper into her lyrical chops and not to shy away from those more uncomfortable feelings.

“It was a weird position to be in, because as a friend I could tell that she was in such a fragile and vulnerable place, as her whole life and marriage was changing in real time,” says Moon. “But she was in this intense survival mode where art was the thing keeping her going, and my job was helping to pull the real stuff out of her. This (’I Don’t Do Humidity’) was all of a sudden going to be a divorce album, and I thought that, objectively, it was important to tell as much of the story as she felt like she should, both for her healing and for the sake of the song.”

Credit: Photos by Sydney Ward

Credit: Photos by Sydney Ward

Shortly after the discovery that inspired “The Avenues,” Crone would also write “Victims” and “Blame Me.” Although the latter two tracks made it onto the initial iteration of “I Don’t Do Humidity,” something was holding “The Avenues” back from completion.

“The song just never felt right to me. I think we chopped and screwed too much,” Crone says. It also didn’t feel right to leave the song hanging. “It was weird for me, as the album was missing this crazy part of the story, and that song went hand-in-hand with the anger of ‘Victims’ and ‘Blame Me.’”

Crone and Moon reverted to their basics, ditching a trip-hop interpretation of the song’s verses in favor of the original guitar and bass lines Crone had tracked at home. The long bass notes of the chorus are actually a kick drum from a sample pack, pitch-corrected to change with the guitar’s root notes. Tucked back into the mix of the pre-chorus floats an easy-to-miss pad, an airy bit of ambience that’s actually bad resonances from the vocal track, filtered through a chorus-heavy reverb and reversed. “I remember we added that in just a few hours before we had to send it off for mastering,” Moon says. “Which is unusual for us to be adding so late in the game.”

Crone signs off on that pre-chorus as her favorite part of the song.

“I was set up in the hallway of the studio with the front door wide open. You can hear what’s going on outside, and even a siren passing very briefly. Since the Avenues is an outdoor shopping mall, we wanted to bring some outdoorsy vibes to the song.”

If “I Don’t Do Humidity” is a trek through grief’s smothering haze, “The Avenues” barrels forward as a transitory chapter where grief becomes a clarifying floodlight.

“I don’t think I’ll ever feel completely comfortable with this song, to be honest,” says Crone.

Sometimes, it hurts to be right. And sometimes, you capture its acrid anti-satisfaction just right.

“Putting it out (as the deluxe version) feels like closure for the song itself, at least. It feels better existing out in the world doing some good than as this dark, cursed thing I have in a box at my house.”

Editor’s note: Lindsay Thomaston was the photographer for the press images for the “I Don’t Do Humidity” album cycle.

Credit: ArtsATL

Credit: ArtsATL

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