The new single from the Brooklyn artist is about love: “an unstoppable free fall that you pray you don’t have to do on your own”
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Anvils aside, here’s perhaps no animated moment more iconic than the recurring Looney Tunes gag in which Wile E. Coyote, in his (impressively persistent) pursuit of Road Runner, runs or falls or is catapulted off of a cliff and hangs suspended in mid-air, often for several moments, before the inevitable ah, shit moment of realization, after which he promptly free falls and crashes to the canyon floor. (*BEEP BEEP*)
While certainly not the most original of analogies (it was just used nine months ago to describe the state of the US economy – sexy!), there’s perhaps no example more accurate to illustrate the most humbling and human of experiences: ~falling in love~. And if the sweet anticipation at the blissful beginning of a romance is the moment that our scrappy hero is hovering—literally walking on air—while defying all rules of physics, it’s when he realizes what’s happening, frantically pedals his skinny little cartoon coyote legs to try and stop it, and drops a few thousand feet before face-planting on the canyon floor that perfectly represents the next step: head over heels.
And THAT brings us to our premiere. Because it’s this feeling that’s beautifully captured in (far sexier) music form—better than Warner Bros. ever could—by Brooklyn artist Cade Hoppe, whose excellent new song “On My Way Down” I’m incredibly stoked to debut here!
“On My Way Down,” follows Cade’s last single, “Loverly High,” and 2020 record, Poor Man’s Love, and over email, the musician shared some insight on the song and the emotions that inspired it:
“As a songwriter, love is one of those things that you can write and write and write about, but never come close to truly understanding. You never know why, when, or how you started to fall until it’s way too late and that’s what this song is about—it’s about an unstoppable free fall that you pray you don’t have to do on your own.”
As for the track’s execution, Cade worked with Bands do BK fave Harper James (of Eighty Ninety and Middle Youth), who recognized something special in the song and encouraged him to move forward with it, despite the fact that it wasn’t immediately the artist’s first choice.
“When I was playing voice memos for Harper at the end of a session, I scrolled past this one and decided to play him a piece of it,” Cade recalled. “It must have been no more than 20 seconds into the song before he was hooked and said he wanted to produce this one next. He saw something in it that I had missed and what turned into one of my favorite songs we’ve done together might never have happened had he not said something.”
Inspired by Jack Antonoff’s Bleachers and Taylor Swift, the collaborators got to work, and when it came to the production process, Cade was as persistent as our coyote friend (though actually ultimately successful) as he and Harper worked to find the perfect snare sound—one that really brought to life the noise the musician had made with his mouth in the initial voice memo.
“Sometimes those small details end up being crucial and I truly believe that if those snares sounded any different, the song just wouldn’t be the same,” he explains of his perfectionism while crafting this story of falling in love—a feeling he describes as “the greatest and most terrifying emotion in the world.”
On the terrifying front, the artist is definitely not wrong, but unlike other reasonable worries, it’s a fear we can’t let hold us back. So before you get to listening to “On My Way Down” on repeat for the rest of summer (and maybe eternity), let’s get back to our Looney Tunes metaphor for a moment: No matter how (un)lucky in love you are, remember, while Wile E. falls very often—and always hard—at the end, he always gets back up.
That’s all, folks—
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Follow Cade at @cade.hoppe and add his music to your Spotify playlists!
Feature image provided by the artist.