Is there anything more ‘Murican than a Kurt-Vonnegut-referencing, c’est-la-vie-minded folk song? Wildcat Slim would have to vote no.
The Boston band debuts their new single “PTW” today (May 22), their brazen anthem of acceptance for a world forever laden with turmoil. Pronounced “poo-tee-weet,” the title is a nod to the a theme in the classic Vonnegut novel Slaughterhouse-Five, as is the recurring chorus of “so it goes.”
“The inspiration for the lyrics actually came from a lot of period TV shows I had been watching at the time,” lead singer Josiah Koven-Matasy tells Vanyaland. “I wanted to evoke the hopelessness of characters like Arthur Shelby and Cullen Bohannon. By happenstance, the line ‘so it goes’ found its way into the song and I just kind of ran with the Slaughterhouse reference. The themes from the book seemed to fit well with the song and so the name ‘PTW’ (poo-tee-weet) became a sort of tongue-in-cheek nod to Vonnegut more than anything else.”
For everyone who wasn’t paying attention in high school English class, bassist Matt Bailin breaks things down a little more: “The line ‘so it goes,’ which appears in Slaughterhouse-Five probably 100 times, helps us, the reader come to terms with a lot of painful stuff going on. It’s a small amount of solace in a harsh reality. ‘Poo-tee-weet’ is the song of the bird sitting in a nearby tree. It tells us that even in a broken world, life still goes on.”
As 2020 drags on, keeping its painfully languid pace, “PTW” is exactly the reminder that we need.
Get hip below.