Love To Walk Away

Album: Pick-Up Full Of Pink Carnations (2023)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • "Love To Walk Away" is a guitar banger about the kind of relationship that leaves you feeling like a doorstop: heavy and constantly getting kicked aside.

    Vaccines lead singer Justin Young pours his heart out here, chronicling the woes of a one-sided love affair. He waits around night after night for a partner who seems to have a talent for vanishing acts. The frustration is palpable – you can practically hear the unanswered texts pinging off his phone. And what's worse, he doesn't even quite understand why this keeps happening.
  • The Vaccines recorded "Love To Walk Away" for their sixth album, Pick-Up Full of Pink Carnations. The song sets the tone for the album, which is all about loss, heartbreak, and that bewildered fumbling around you do afterwards trying to make sense of it all.
  • The Vaccines penned the song on their first day in the studio with their LA-based producer Andrew Wells (Halsey, Phoebe Bridgers) and former Dirty Pretty Things guitarist Anthony Rossomando. It gave them their direction for the album.

    "'Love To Walk Away' was the first song we wrote for the record, and it immediately acted as this sort of sonic signpost," Young told The Sun. "Thematically too, it was a beacon. It felt exciting, inspiring and it felt right. So once we had that, we knew what path we wanted to walk down."
  • The album title comes from a misremembered lyric from Don McLean's classic song "American Pie." The real lyric is:

    I was a lonely teenage broncin' buck
    With a pink carnation and a pickup truck

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Leslie West of Mountain

Leslie West of MountainSongwriter Interviews

From the cowbell on "Mississippi Queen" to recording with The Who when they got the wrong Felix, stories from one of rock's master craftsmen.

Millie Jackson

Millie JacksonSongwriter Interviews

Outrageously gifted and just plain outrageous, Millie is an R&B and Rap innovator.

Edwin McCain

Edwin McCainSongwriter Interviews

"I'll Be" was what Edwin called his "Hail Mary" song. He says it proves "intention of the songwriter is 180 degrees from potential interpretation by an audience."

Into The Great Wide Open: Made-up Musicians

Into The Great Wide Open: Made-up MusiciansSong Writing

Eddie (played by Johnny Depp in the video) found fame fleeting, but Chuck Berry's made-up musician fared better.

Vanessa Carlton

Vanessa CarltonSongwriter Interviews

The "A Thousand Miles" singer on what she thinks of her song being used in White Chicks and how she captured a song from a dream.

Incongruent Opening Acts

Incongruent Opening ActsSong Writing

Here's what happens when an opening act is really out of place with the headliner, like when Beastie Boys opened for Madonna.