REVIEW: Ruby Waters Provokes Every Attachment Style With Her New Single “GET A GRIP”
REVIEW
REVIEW
☆ BY ELLIE KIM ☆
SURROUNDED BY MOUNTAINS—Ruby Waters is a singer and songwriter based in British Columbia. For fans of Rihanna and Nirvana, the duality is a perfect blend of Waters’ personality musically. Her instinctive, genre-blurring sound pulls from alternative rock, dream pop, R&B, soul and raw singer-songwriter confessionals; her single “WET T-SHIRT” amassed over 11 million streams on Spotify and built a foundation for the over 800K monthly Spotify listeners supporting her today.
Her latest single, “GET A GRIP” released on September 10, is a groovy and revelatory song that reveals the inner-workings of Waters’ emotions in a relationship. There are feelings of contempt, entrapment and an admission of avoidance. The lyric “Think I gotta dip before I flip” begins to sound like the onset before you realize that the concept of being in this specific relationship is overwhelming you. This is emulated even further with the flowy, confessional lyric “I’m always falling, always falling” that reveals potentially being in over your head.
The attachment styles relevant to this song are an even mix of avoidant and anxious. The juxtaposition between the vulnerable admission of being anxious within the relationship—as stated with the line “I’m tired of calling”—versus the want to shield away and create distance, whether that be physical or emotional exemplified by the lyric, “It’s way too bright, let's turn down the lights.”
The music video shows Waters on a motorcycle, perhaps adding a physical form to the adrenaline and risk that comes with a relationship. Then the scene switches and she’s at a bar, the people around her having fun as she’s sitting on the ledge, singing to herself, really portraying the battle within herself and the conflicting feelings of being both avoidant and anxiously attached.
Ruby Waters will be playing the next time you enter an indie-rock femme bar, and you’ll think of her as you inevitably miss your target during a game of pool. She is the moment—bold, honest, and provocative. Go listen to “GET A GRIP” on all streaming platforms.
