“Heat Waves” by Glass Animals, Monday, July 17, 2023

There are numerous examples of Indie bands getting big and the fan crisis of how to label the formerly “indie” band. R.E.M., Modest Mouse, Mumford & Sons and today’s band, Glass Animals, have had major hits that propelled a niche sound intended for smaller audiences to festivals, arenas, and pop radio. While the English band Glass Animals had enjoyed some success from even their first record Zaba, it wasn’t until their 2020 sleeper hit “Heat Waves” became a TikTok hit that took the band to the top of Billboard’s Hot 100 chart for five weeks two years later in 2022. 

SOMETIMES ALL I THINK ABOUT IS YOU. Dave Bayley, lead singer of Glass Animals, both wrote and produced "Heat Waves."The melancholy tune has been interpreted in a number of ways in its path to reigning as the number 1 song of the year in 2022, according to Billboard. Was it a break up song or a song about a death? Was it a song about missing the old days? Was it a song about missing a pre-Covid world. Bayley explained to Apple Music that the lyrics of the song deal with a friend who started dating someone and slowly starts to change. Bayley wonders "'Where did my friend go?’ Well, this song is about realizing that it’s happened to you, that it’s you that’s changed." Originally slated for a July 2020 release, the band decided to delay the album Dreamland's release in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests happening around the world following the brutal murder of George Floyd. The band decided to release the album in August in order to "Keep focus on the Black Lives Matter movement and the discussions taking place around racism and police brutality around the world," according to NME. 

I'M SWIMMING IN A MIRROR. "Heat Waves" is a perfect example of an accidental hit. The song had more than one meaning attached to it when Dave Bayley penned the lyrics, and culture adopted it, adding attaching more meanings to the song. As "Heat Waves'" parent album Dreamland deals with the hospitalization of Bayley's friend and the band's drummer Joe Seaward, the video for "Heat Waves" is a "love letter to live music and the culture and togetherness surrounding it," according to the band's lead singer. As the album was released at the end of summer of 2020, it makes sense that "Heat Waves" wouldn't catch on until the next summer on TikTok and in 2021, life certainly wasn't back to normal, nor was it completely back to normal in 2022. Much of the album Dreamland deals with nostalgia, particularly for the '90s. The blended sounds of R&B and occasional trap beats blend into "vaporwave," electronic music slowed down to provide a relaxing effect. The nostalgia of a hot summer day back when things were the way they should be is the central point of connection with "Heat Waves." The lyrics deal with the mirage or hallucinations that appear on hot pavement. And in those wavy lines, we hallucinate about the way things were. Now in 2023, things aren't the same as before Covid, but the literal heat waves are worse than ever as our planet gets hotter and hotter. We may start feeling nostalgic for the '90s when climate change seemed like something in the distant future. 

 

Read “Heat Waves” by Glass Animals on Genius.

Official Music Video:

Lyric Video: