Former Belle’s “I Woke Up in Chicago” is a song for anyone who’s ever felt completely alone in a crowded room, for anyone who’s ever felt like they have more responsibilities than friends, for anyone who’s ever wanted to just run away, hide, and jump back into some familiar pattern of childhood monotony without all the chaos, without all the decisions to constantly have to make. It’s a song for the overwhelmed, for the apathetic, for the broken-hearted, for the era of fear-fueled indifference. You push people away, try to avoid, try to escape, but at the end of the day all you truly want is someone to listen and understand you.
“So you get on the bus going the wrong way home,” sings Bruno Catrambone. “You get off somewhere in a town that you don’t know. You bury yourself, book a room by the bar. You ask the front desk not to tell where you are.” Catrambone’s simple, hushed words speak of pain and rejection, while the gentle accompaniment of the acoustic guitar gives the song a subtlety alt-folk feel. The video, animated and directed by Jon Lewis, brings this to life this low-key, lo-fi attitude while further complicating the feeling of not belonging in a time or place.
Indie-rock singer-songwriter and CRUISR guitarist Bruno Catrambone is joined by Kyle Sheva, Tim Bostwick and Josh Miller on Former Belle’s new EP Foreign Bed, out this month on Randm Records. Other songs on the six-song EP include “A Beautiful One” and “I Was Waiting For You.”
Like what you hear? Check out Former Belle at the Knitting Factory in Brooklyn this Sunday with other fabulous Philly bands such as Hemming, Grandchildren and Tutlie.
Article: Heather McAdams
