Take Shape
by Code Orange (featuring Billy Corgan)

Album: The Above (2023)
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Songfacts®:

  • This grungy rocker is about struggling with dark thoughts while trying to find one's place in the world. "'Take Shape' is really about feeling like you're being pushed through a stage play of your life that you really can't control, like some Truman Show s--t," vocalist and conceptual mastermind Jami Morgan told Apple Music. "Like you're just a puppet on strings being controlled by your own subconscious or your goals or whatever."
  • Guest vocalist Billy Corgan croons the bridge, voicing the urge to sell out.

    Spread your wings
    Show us who you are
    Spread your wings
    You'll go far


    Despite their growing popularity, Code Orange remains an independent band. They're known for their heavy sound and their experimental approach to music, preferring to do things their way. But there are always temptations to compromise the group's values by releasing music that's more commercial.
  • Code Orange recorded "Take Shape" for their fifth album, The Above. It was produced by Jami Morgan and the group's keyboardist, Eric "Shade" Balderose, and engineered by Nirvana producer Steve Albini's at his Electrical Audio studio in Chicago. The Above is Code Orange's first album to be entirely self-produced.
  • The Above is the follow-up to 2020's Underneath, and there's a direct overlap between the two records. "Where I feel Underneath and The Above coincide is like there's almost this door between them," Morgan told Apple Music. "It's the door of moment and choice. To me, it's the thin, reflective line between things and feelings that feel very far apart but are often very close, like the inverse, the question and the answer, darkness and light. A lot of The Above's themes are different ideas of light - the light of self versus the light of acceptance and want."
  • Code Orange first teased "Take Shape" June 2021 when they shared a photo of the band posing in the studio with Corgan.

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