Songfacts®:

• "Need 2" is a song by the American indie-rock band Pinegrove released in 2014 as part of the EP Mixtape Two. The palpably moody cut was written by Evan Stephens Hall, the band's lead singer and guitarist.
• "Need 2" is a slow, meandering song with a simple melody and lyrics that are both introspective and personal. It's about the creative process and the struggle to find the motivation to write music.
• The song opens with a field recording of birds, which creates a sense of calm and tranquility. This is then contrasted with the droning, despondent guitar riff, which creates a sense of tension and anxiety. The lyrics reflect this tension, as Hall sings about the difficulty of finding inspiration and the fear of failure.
• Evan Stephens wrote "Need 2" at a time when Pinegrove didn't have a large audience. "We would show our friends the music, but no big audience," he told Rolling Stone. As such, he was writing for himself, and was feeling "bummed out, spaced out, bored."
  
  "And then, too, this is really a song about songwriting, ultimately, and just trying to spur myself on," he added.
• By 2014, the band had released one album and several extended plays, including &, which caught the ear of a listener, Kenny, in Canada. Kenny said that he would love to put out a cassette of it. This inspired Hall to write "Need 2," which he saw as a way to challenge himself to write another song in the same style as the & tracks.
• There is also a track titled "Need" on Mixtape 2.
• In 2023, a video from TikToker @garrettlee39 dancing to "Need 2" went viral over social media. Lee's dance moves caught the eye, and they quickly caught on with other TikTok users. The dance was dubbed the "Pinegrove Shuffle," and it became a popular trend on the platform. The sudden resurgence in popularity of "Need 2" led to the song being re-released as a single on June 15, 2023.