Anna Rose - “Whatever Gets You Through The Night”
Photo: Alexa King
Nashville-based Anna Rose has a knack for “stripping away all the bullshit and simply telling the truth.” And she’s made this abundantly clear with her most recent offering to the world of music, “Whatever Gets You Through the Night.”
This one starts off by hitting us with a massive kick drum as part of its slow and steady rhythm. Anna Rose’s softly sung vocals appear over the top of some deeply placed bass and most people will likely become fans right out of the gate. The first verse is a bit quiet– almost soothing– but the sheer magnitude of the drums lets everyone know that this thing is going to be monumental. And, sure enough, at forty-seven seconds, the music expands for the first refrain, saturating every available bit of sonic space.
With the second verse, the listener receives some moody, backwards sounding artifacts that bring out the emotional performance of the reverberated vocal. This journey is ethereal and cinematic and one of the most beautifully arranged songs about heartbreak that we’ve ever heard. As Anna Rose puts it: “It’s exquisite torture.” And by the time the lead guitar arrives at around 2:40, you’re likely reliving all of the mistakes that your heart had to make in order for you to become who you are today.
Anna Rose says that this song is about “falling in love at first sight with someone you know you can never end up with. It’s Romeo & Juliet. It’s exquisite torture. It’s knowing that you can’t handle your heart being shattered again but being unable to stop the train that’s already moving. Questioning your ability to love at all, after so much heartbreak. Hanging on every word they say and agonizing in the wait between. Sonically, I wrote this song with my producer and friend, Paul Moak. We created so much of the soundscape during the demo process and ran my vocals through tape at that time. We couldn’t beat the way it sounded when we went in to make the album, so the majority of this recording is actually the demo."
-TM