Darwin’s ‘Dance Alone:’ An Unintentional Song For The Age Of Self-Quarantine
When Darwin Meiners wrote the song, “Dance Alone,” it was before the COVID-19 crisis changed all our lives. The Santa Rosa-based singer songwriter had other things on his mind when he wrote the song that would become a video that resonates with the age of sheltering in place.
“What it was is,” Darwin explained, “I can’t dance worth sh#t, I’m a horrible dancer, but I really like dance music, so I was sitting there, kind of doing a comedy, kind of a comedic approach to it. The song started out with ‘I don’t feel like dancing, I’m at home.’ That was the lyric-’I don’t feel like dancing, I’m at home.’…So that’s where it came from, and it was just like right after that, we all got shut down, and I said, ‘oh God, this is a whole different perspective, and I always wanted to make a video but now we were locked down, and ‘how are we going to make a video?”
Darwin initially hesitated to finish the track. He explains, “I was actually, again with the sincerity thing, I was worried that I shouldn’t put it out, because people are going to think it’s opportunistic, and that kind of thing. And then, you just have to throw that aside, because that’s just your inner voice, you know, being in the way.”
Darwin’s friend and frequent collaborator, Julian Shah-Tayler, helped him see the potential in the tune, and the result is a powerful mix with a lushness that belies its minimalism. The video came together with the help of Linda Strawberry. Darwin explained: “You know I work really closely with Julian, The Singularity. He produces pretty much everything I do now, and he’s a tremendous asset, and I bounced it off him and he said ‘this is a great idea’ and ‘I love the song,’ and I send him demos and we bounce the demos back and forth until we like what we hear. And I’m really happy with it, I think it’s a really cool song, and I think that the video by Linda, is incredible — I mean the video’s incredible.” (Shah-Tayler is a member of Darwin’s new project, called Tech No, a work in progress which employs minimalistic techniques to create lo-fi sounds.)
The resulting video features footage provided by various friends of the artists involved, dancing at home, alone. It’s a brilliant concept that truly captures the isolated spirit of the COVID-19 quarantine. The song was produced and mixed by Shah-Tayler and features his guitar and synth work, as well as his background vocals.
Darwin, who once played David J of Bauhaus and Love And Rockets in a tribute called Luv ’N’ Rockets, forged a solo career fashioning songs ranging from lovely to acerbic. He met Strawberry when she was a member of Billy Corgan’s (of Smashing Pumpkin’s) backing band.
“I met her again,” Darwin says, “ when she made the video for David J and The Gentlemen Thieves. I was the bassist. We got to talking and we hit it off. I’ve kept in touch with her over the years. She’s an incredible artist and wonderful person.”
In a Zoom conference on May 24th with Shah-Tayler, Darwin described his relationship with Strawberry. “Yeah, Linda does a lot of stuff with the Pumpkins and what happens was she did all of their tour imagery for the last 6, 7 years. But now she’s gotten popular, she’s just gotten hired by Bon Jovi. and Green Day. And she’s working with Katie Cole, who’s playing bass and keyboards with the Smashing Pumpkins now.”
Darwin continues: “I met her a long time ago, like 10 years ago, at a Billy Corgan show, because Linda Strawberry was in the band when he got his solo show. And then I saw her again when she made a video for David J. And I’ve always just really liked her, and she’s always been really really, visually stunning to me. She just makes really cool stuff. So she did me an amazing favor by doing this because I don’t’ have Green Day money!”
Check out the video for “Dance Alone” above, and find out more about Darwin Meiners in the links below.
(Featuredimage is a still from the video, “Dancing Alone,” by Darwin. Directed by Linda Strawberry. Used with permission.)
Originally published at http://www.synthbeat.com on June 7, 2020.
