The newest setlist is pretty cool, huge number of songs (24 apparently + they played stuff like My Number, You Wouldn't Like Me) but people still said there was loads of banter. imo they're getting back into their real tour groove after the awkward Heatrthrob and LY2D setups.
I feel you. I had time to think before answering this and yeah, I never binge watched lytd and heartthrob era shows.
A lot of the songs on the album that can be read as being about a romantic relationship could also apply to siblings. Is that something you’ve been exploring more in songwriting?
Tegan: “It’s funny, because when Sara wrote both those songs [ ‘100x’ and ‘White Knuckles’], I was in the room and I had no idea that she was writing about our relationship, so I’m kind of like everybody else.”
Sara: “I can feel her awkwardness sometimes when I’m talking about our relationship publicly, but I also feel like it was a huge part of my identity and my growth as a person, and I’ve never written about it. It helps that Tegan and I are in a really good place. I feel incredibly proud of what we were able to overcome because it was dark. And we got through it.”
COSCARELLI, Joe. Tegan and Sara Talk About ‘Love You to Death,’ a Deeper Dive Into the Pop Mainstream. The New York Times, 2016. x - OP x
When Heartthrob came out, you spoke about how hard it was for you to write such direct lyrics and not dress everything up in a metaphor—you’d sometimes pretend you were writing for other artists. For new songs like “100x,” did that simplicity come any easier?
Sara: “I forgot I had said that about writing for other people. I really like the songs for this record because I didn’t have to think so hard about trying to say things clearly. There’s always a trick to that, too, because it makes you really vulnerable, specifically on ‘100x’, because I was pulling from my relationship with Tegan.
I was actually in the room with Tegan when I was writing a bunch of that song. We were working with Jesse Shatkin, who had worked with Greg Kurstin on Heartthrob with us. Tegan popped in while I was writing the lyrics, and it was funny because she would pipe up and say, ‘What if you sing this thing? Or that thing?’ And I was like, this is so awkward. I’m trying to use our experience as sisters and our conflict when we were younger. I’m not saying that in the room, but that’s what I’m doing. I’m almost creating the conflict anew. I’m like, ‘No, I don’t really like that line.’ I can see her getting frustrated, like, 'I’m just trying to help!’ And I’m like, I know. But it was really helpful. I was really tapping back into how complicated our relationship is.”
I knew you wrote about your sibling relationship more with this record, but I never would have guessed “100x” was one of those songs. It sounds like a breakup song.
Sara: “Because our relationship is in such a good place, it’s easier to analyze and look back at just how bad it was at times. For a lot of career, we were really struggling with trying to get people to avoid innuendo about sexuality and our sibling relationship. I mean, there was stuff in the early days that was borderline suggesting we were incestuous. We really stayed away from talking about ourselves because we were like, ‘God, people cannot handle that we’re twin sisters who are gay.’
All these things were very institutionalized in my brain when I thought about our relationship. Even writing a song like “100x,” which everyone will think is about a romantic relationship, that would have made me so uncomfortable even five years ago. I would have been afraid people wouldn’t underestimate how truly intimate and like a marriage my relationship with Tegan is. I was afraid to talk about those things because of these horrible stereotypes and weird, f—ked up things that people think about gay people or gay siblings. But in a way the song sounds like it’s a breakup song because it was a breakup, it really was.”
FEENEY, Nolan. How Tegan and Sara Became Bona Fide Pop Stars. Time, 2016. x - OP ?
