Fallingwater

Album: Heard It In A Past Life (2018)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • Maggie Rogers first began writing "Fallingwater" in her Brooklyn apartment in late 2016. Over the course of the following 16 months or so the singer-songwriter completed the track during several sessions with former Vampire Weekend guitarist/keyboardist Rostam Batmanglij.
  • Speaking about the track's meaning, Maggie Rogers said, "It's a song that celebrates rapid change and how simultaneously scary and electric it can feel."
  • Maggie Rogers made use of the entire Studio 8H stage when she performed this song on the November 3, 2018 episode of Saturday Night Live, following a rendition of "Light On."

    Rogers recalled to the BBC how she "felt this giant shift" during her appearance on the show. "I was having a lot of sound issues in Light On," she said. "For the first verse, I couldn't hear anything and I was singing flat. Then, in the chorus, I found it, I got there. "But that happening on Light On gave me fuel and tension for Fallingwater, and I just let go. I forgot I was in front of people and had this out-of-body experience."
  • Rostam recalled to Billboard that when Maggie Rogers brought him the beginnings of "Fallingwater" to work on together, he found it difficult to get right structurally because it was so minimal. The solution came when the songstress dreamt they'd slowed the tempo down, and once they did that, everything clicked. "One of my favorite moves is to slow a song down," said Rostam. "I feel like you really can experience the groove."

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Director Mark Pellington ("Jeremy," "Best Of You")

Director Mark Pellington ("Jeremy," "Best Of You")Song Writing

Director Mark Pellington on Pearl Jam's "Jeremy," and music videos he made for U2, Jon Bon Jovi and Imagine Dragons.

Why Does Everybody Hate Nu-Metal? Your Metal Questions Answered

Why Does Everybody Hate Nu-Metal? Your Metal Questions AnsweredSong Writing

10 Questions for the author of Precious Metal: Decibel Presents the Stories Behind 25 Extreme Metal Masterpieces

Greg Lake of Emerson, Lake & Palmer

Greg Lake of Emerson, Lake & PalmerSongwriter Interviews

Greg talks about writing songs of "universal truth" for King Crimson and ELP, and tells us about his most memorable stage moment (it involves fireworks).

Paul Williams

Paul WilliamsSongwriter Interviews

He's a singer and an actor, but as a songwriter Paul helped make Kermit a cultured frog, turned a bank commercial into a huge hit and made love both "exciting and new" and "soft as an easy chair."

Harry Wayne Casey of KC and The Sunshine Band

Harry Wayne Casey of KC and The Sunshine BandSongwriter Interviews

Harry Wayne Casey tells the stories behind KC and The Sunshine Band hits like "Get Down Tonight," "That's The Way (I Like It)," and "Give It Up."

Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath, Heaven And Hell

Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath, Heaven And HellSongwriter Interviews

Guitarist Tony Iommi on the "Iron Man" riff, the definitive Black Sabbath song, and how Ozzy and Dio compared as songwriters.