Singled Out: Crazy Arm's Floating Bones

Keavin Wiggins | 06-18-2023

Single art

Devon lefty roots-punks Crazy Arm recently released their new single "Floating Bones". To celebrate we asked Darren Johns to tell us about the track. Here is the story:

'Floating Bones' was first conceived in 2017 when we were demoing songs for our last album 'Dark Hands, Thunderbolts' (which came out in 2021). There were very few lyrics written, and I wasn't happy with the chorus idea, so the song got bumped. Fast-forward to spring 2023 and we wanted to release a new single to coincide with our first tour of Canada. I composed a new chorus, re-worked the vocals, wrote brand new lyrics, re-tracked everything but the drums, and 'Floating Bones' was back in the game.

With time and money not on our side, we went full DIY and recorded the guitars, bass and vocals ourselves with our newly acquired knowledge of Logic Pro and various cool plug-ins. And a couple good friends helped with mixing and mastering. This is what lends the song that toasty, raspy, intense quality. Not exactly by design but by necessity and lack of expertise. My vocal style is decidedly different (to me) on this song than anything previous, which I can only put down to being on my own when I recorded it.

Lyrically, 'Floating Bones' is all over the place. The line "Glory led me down to the river" was originally "Gloria led me...". Gloria was the name of my late mum, who died fve years ago. So there's a lot of refection in the first verse. "The police are running wild in the city / Cruel are the hands that turn the wheel" is an unsubtle reference to worldwide police brutality, including racist and misogynist murders in the USA and UK, French cops viciously beating Parisian protesters, and the fact that neo-liberalist States fully sanction this repressive behaviour. The chorus "Fatal missions, floating bones" is a comment on the bodies of asylum seekers washed up on European shorelines and how this ties in with our Tory government's shameful 'hostile environment' policies and ant-immigration stance. And "Snowed in, shameless, called out, taken down to size / Locked in, toothless, working hard to keep the fight alive" is self-doubt and high anxiety on overdrive.

As I said, all over the place. But the simple conclusion is: life is tough, capitalism makes it so much tougher. Keep your friends close and your enemies begging for mercy.

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen and watch for yourself below