by Elle Roberts
If you haven’t already listened to the reputable and masterful artist King Krule, I suggest you shall, and I have the perfect track for those of you who like a little something melancholy. King Krule is a well known English singer, songwriter, and musician. You may know him from his older work, perhaps “Six Feet Beneath the Moon”, but I’ll be giving you a glimpse of a beautifully painful track, and its inner workings, on his 2017 record “The Ooz”. The track “Slush Puppy” is a look into Krule’s insecurities within his relationship given to us in the form of a dual voice. Transporting you into a watery
world of longing, this track is both relatable and crushing in the sense that we feel the internal push and pull when faced with the looming feeling of being incapable of loving someone the way they deserve; yet here we are the outsiders, peering into Krule’s internal struggle, feeling his despair sonically and lyrically. The dual voice allows us to hear both Krule himself and his subconscious thoughts, exposing to us his feelings of shame and loneliness in his relationship.
world of longing, this track is both relatable and crushing in the sense that we feel the internal push and pull when faced with the looming feeling of being incapable of loving someone the way they deserve; yet here we are the outsiders, peering into Krule’s internal struggle, feeling his despair sonically and lyrically. The dual voice allows us to hear both Krule himself and his subconscious thoughts, exposing to us his feelings of shame and loneliness in his relationship.
The song begins with the lighter, grainier voice of his subconscious, daring his lover not to be afraid to face him, but face him for what? The voice of his subconscious is masculine and dominant in the sense that it demands the lover to confront him face to face. Yet this power is met with submission via the low tempo and watery guitar sounds, making us feel like the words are melting into the music. The song progresses:
Face me already
Replace me already
Nothings working with me
This gives us the first glimpse into Krule’s insecurities. Because Krule’s subconscious voice is the first speaker, we can understand the internal confirmation of his lack of self
confidence. The beautiful nature of this song is enveloped in a complex conversation and meddling between Krule and himself (conscious and subconscious), a phenomenon experienced by everyone yet not commonly voiced. Krule creates an amazing body of work covering the internal struggle of not feeling enough, and within the theme of deep sea diving found in the album, we can understand the sinking feeling that Krule experiences: the feeling of deep conscious despair.
Don’t be scared x3
To face me already,
I’m a waste baby
To continue the song, Krule’s conscious voice jumps in, repeating in its subdued nature to have his lover face him. Before having looked at the lyrics, I mistook this lyric for “deface me already” naturally because of Krule’s low-toned voice. The amazing thing about this track is that the obscurity of his lyrics fully complement his work, meaning that a listener hearing “deface me already” instead of “replace me already” doesn’t take away from the body of work, but gives it perspective and subjectivity. The value and momentum of the lyrics aren’t lost with the misconstrued idea of what Krule is trying to say, thus giving the listener’s ears agency to what they choose to hear or feel.
I’m down under, sea
Nothing is working with me
I’m a waste baby
Nothing is working with me
I’m a waste baby
Krule has a playful twist on feeling “down under” with his ocean-driven lexicon by adding “sea” strategically after, threading the theme of deep sea diving within his album together. Here, we are physically placed in a moment of deep solitude in both Krule’s reality and his subconscious voice’s anxieties, almost as if we are plundering underwater. When listening, pay close attention to the clash and unison of both voices, showing the friction of Krule’s two forms of consciousness. As the track approaches what could be called the bridge, the tempo of the song increases, and the guitar projects louder, each strum melting into the next, nearly masked by the screams of Krule in the background. At this point, the subconscious voice is almost muted, and the truth of Krule’s reality is displayed solely through his prominent screams of:
Nothing is working with me
I’m as worthless you see
Nothing is working with me x3
I’m as worthless you see
Nothing is working with me x3
The outro to this track could be interpreted as Krule being stuck underwater, slowly emerging, breaching the surface of his negative self-vision, fully exposing his anguish to its full extremity. Krule’s screaming, conscious voice exclaims that nothing is working with him; each time louder, and more painful than the last. This truly sets the tone of the track, and makes us feel the emotional breaking point of one’s internal battles. Krule works hard to build a melancholy and self-deprecating shelter around us, eventually
breaking all of those walls down with his painfully agonizing ending.“Slush Puppy” sonically makes you feel adrift in a vast ocean, with its lyrics subsiding in the darkness we see below. So if you haven’t had a solid listen to this track quite yet (or Krule for that matter), I suggest you do; go ahead and have a tear-ridden conversation with yourself, just as Krule displays here…
breaking all of those walls down with his painfully agonizing ending.“Slush Puppy” sonically makes you feel adrift in a vast ocean, with its lyrics subsiding in the darkness we see below. So if you haven’t had a solid listen to this track quite yet (or Krule for that matter), I suggest you do; go ahead and have a tear-ridden conversation with yourself, just as Krule displays here…
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