New Music: The Noisy – Grenadine

As a confirmed vegetarian, I’m not so sure about The Secret Ingredient Is Even More Meat as an album title, but tracks like Grenadine will ensure it is musically and emotionally nutritious.

The song, and its accompanying video by long-time collaborator Sam Cush, is a tribute to their shared hometown of Annapolis, where The Noisy’s frontperson Sara Mae Henke found both family and their identity.

Nostalgia flows through the track, but not a longing for the past; instead, looking back with fondness and pride, memories of youth forming the person Henke became. Grenadine embodies those salad days of youth that many of us have shared: hanging out, radio playing, beer being drunk, and friendships forged.

“The director, Sam Cush, and I came of age hanging around downtown Annapolis, where I worked at a tourist trap coffee shop and Sam’s parents moved,” says Henke.

“It’s where I found my first artist community in my co-workers who were writers and musicians and illustrators, where I saw live drag for the first time, where Sam and I late-night-drove, and where I snuck onto the best rooftops.”

“This music video is a love letter to Annapolis, this town of annual croquet matches between Johnnies and midshipmen, cobblestone mornings with streams of last night’s liquor smell, watching boats round Ego Alley.”

“Before I left for college, my co-workers threw a house party for me, and I remember feeling so loved, then driving back over the bridge home afterwards and crying with the windows down because I didn’t want to leave. All the things my teenage self desperately needed – queer friendship, a better haircut, and to get to come back to Annapolis – filming this music video affirmed I have now, and then some.”

“The song, unlike any of the other ones I’ve written, jumped into my head and insisted on being written. I had the melody and the rhythm, but figuring out the lyrics about this place and these people I loved was tedious.”

“I remember Sam coming to visit me in Knoxville, and we co-worked, and I got the lyrics down finally. It makes sense to me that this song and its visual world took the friendship of another person who loves this place like I do in order to find its final shape.”

The Secret Ingredient Is Even More Meat comes out on Audio Antihero on the 24th of October in cassette and digital formats. You can listen to The Noisy on Bandcamp, Spotify, and Apple Music. For album updates and much more, head to the band’s Facebook and Instagram socials. By the way, we did an Introducing piece with The Noisy back in June.

Header image by Morgan Kelly