The Story Behind Every Song On Speedy Ortiz’s New Album Rabbit Rabbit

Among the artist community, it’s become a tad cliché to cite 2020 and COVID lockdown as being a catalyst for heightened introspection. Nonetheless, lockdown-led navel-gazing was a natural, deeply human response to the pandemic, and not just for creative types. First off, what else was there to do? Second, I once had a therapist who told me about “the frictive wound” — in the psych community, this is ascribed to people who can’t (or won’t) sit still lest they be alone with their thoughts. Keeping incredibly busy is one way we avoid facing life’s hard stuff. A few years ago, Sadie Dupuis had to deal with her own “frictive” wound as Speedy Ortiz were pulled off the road. What she found would inform the contents of Speedy’s new album, Rabbit Rabbit, which is out today.