Video: Superchunk – “Erasure”
Directed by Whitey McConnaughy. From What a Time to Be Alive, out now on Merge Records.
“Erasure” features backing vocals from Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfield and The Magnetic Fields’ Stephin Merritt, and it’s another punch in the gut from Superchunk.
Hate so graceless and so cavalier
We don’t just disappear
Shifting shapes you’re just an auctioneer
But we’re still here
Mac McCaughan says: “The song ‘Erasure’ is about the desire and attempt, on the part of the old white men currently running this country, to erase the experience, history, and existence of entire groups of people who don’t look or think like them. They want a straight white America which does not and has never existed, but they hope to make it so. When director Whitey McConnaughy heard the song and started thinking about video ideas, he heard another angle, which is also a theme of our album: Given today’s anxiety-inducing, creeping authoritarianism, how do we get through each day when we feel like we’re losing our minds?”
For real. How do we get through each day? The last couple of years have been absolutely brutal to anybody who pays attention and gives a shit. I’m not sure Superchunk has an answer, but listening to loud, defiant music seems to help for a little while…