Deep Dark Waters

Album: Come Ahead (2024)
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Songfacts®:

  • "Deep Dark Waters" is a politically charged and socially conscious track described by Primal Scream frontman Bobby Gillespie as a reflection of "the dark undercurrent of our times." The song tackles some weighty subjects - refugee crises, political violence, and the eerie echoes of history.
  • According to the band, there is still time to change course, though they're not exactly sugarcoating the situation. The mood is ominous but not entirely without hope, and the song's sinister feel is juxtaposed with a smattering of light flamenco guitars.
  • "Deep Dark Waters" owes much of its intellectual weight to Italian philosopher and writer Franco "Bifo" Berardi, whose musings on everything from technology to the collective human psyche have clearly struck a chord with Gillespie and company. Berardi's famous warning - "Those who do not learn from the past are condemned to repeat it" - is practically the song's motto.
  • The music video is directed by Douglas Hart, whose connections with Gillespie go back to The Jesus And Mary Chain (Hart played bass and Gillespie drums in the band during the mid-1980s). He has made videos with Primal Scream since 1991.

    The visual is a technicolor dreamscape, featuring Gillespie and bassist Simone Marie Butler, that somehow evokes both surreal beauty and lurking menace.
  • As part of Primal Scream's 12th album, Come Ahead, "Deep Dark Waters" sits in a larger narrative of conflict - both internal and external. While the album carries a message of hope, it's tempered with an understanding of the darkness that lies within all of us. Recorded in Belfast, London, and Los Angeles, and produced by David Holmes, the record marks the band's first full-length release since 2016's Chaosmosis.

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