Nicole Atkins releases her new record Drama next month. The old-school pop revivalist has shared the singles "When The Night Falls" and "Singing In The Mirror" so far, and now she's back with the extravagant, lonesome album opener, "Trippin' On Teardrops."
“After wrestling with what this song wanted to be for a while, I had the chorus. Like an SOS,” Atkins told Flood. She continued:
Then my good old pal Peter Morén from Peter Bjorn and John was visiting Nashville, and we were writing, and I showed him this chorus, which he loved, and I just put down the verse words which I thought I’d replace because I was almost embarrassed at how pitiful they sounded, but that was just the state of my life at that time. Lonely and dreaming and wishing things were different. The person I was missing most was myself, but sometimes it just takes a good friend to shine a light to get ya through it.
I wrote “Trippin’ On Teardrops” during a long period of time where I was having all these insane sleep issues. Never being able to fall asleep and then waking up sometimes after two days of sleep. It was like a nightmare that I couldn’t wake up from. Burnout? Maybe. Depression? Mostly because of sleep issues. And it was at a time where it seemed like the world was business as usual and I was watching it all go by in my dreams.
When it came time to make the video, Caleb Herring, Sun Records cameraman extraordinaire, flew up to the Jersey shore while I was visiting family. We had two days to figure something out, and my high school friend came through with this estate he was taking care of that was now owned by the NJ Parks system. It was from the early 1900s and had a bajillion stunning rooms, bathing tunnels, grounds, etc. it also had all these fishing trophies that were left there, so an idea came quickly… A glamorous woman wakes up in her gorgeous estate, and as you follow her day, you see her seemingly perfect life is not all it’s cracked up to be when your only company is the dead and shellacked fishes on the walls.
Watch below.
Drama is out 9/28 on Wicked Game/Sun.
