Natalie Mering (Weyes Blood) is our guest on this week’s episode of The FADER Interview. In conversation with contributing editor Raphael Helfand, she dissects her new album, And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow, due out this Friday (November 18) via Sub Pop. Their discussion includes a deep dive into the record’s third and final single, “God Turn Me Into a Flower,” a slow and sprawling devotional produced by Oneohtrix Point Never and arriving today on the cusp of the full project’s release.
Specifically, she gives her take on the Greek myth that inspired the song. Most people view the story of Narcissus — who stared at his reflection in a lake for so long he took root, eventually going fully floral — as a straightforward morality tale warning against the pitfalls of vanity. But Mering sees Narcissus’ sin as an allegory for our modern escapism, and views his end state less as a punishment than a natural process we’ll all go through eventually.
“In order to withstand huge geological shifts, you want to be soft and pliable,” she explains in the interview. “The rigidity of wanting everything to constantly stay the same, wanting the life we thought we should have, won’t serve anybody well in the future. There’s a pliability and softness to a flower, and it’s also a catharsis: If there’s nothing we can really do, that’s fine too. We can just be nature, because that’s what we really are.”
Listen to the full conversation and subscribe to The FADER Interview wherever you get your podcasts via this link.
