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Fallin' Angel

from The Way Down by Van Plating

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about

I wrote this song after a very hard fall (moreso a crash) off the pedestal I'd been riding on for far too long. Have you ever been on that side of the fallout in a relationship? Where someone you're close to is finally head-to-head with the real you, not their idealized/fictional version of you, and you came up short? The beauty on the other side of that moment if both humans lean in, is true intimacy. But it's crash-and-burn-to-swim. So this is a song caught in the inbetween of those moments in a deeply intimate story. Where you're finally feet-to-the-earth yourself, and you find yourself alone. And your spirit roams a bit, sad, unsettled, feeling a bit homeless because although the relationship you thought you had was in part an illusion, you felt safe there. But you weren't. Neither of you were, because it wasn't honest. However, when left to roam and then perhaps return as one's self, one's full self without pride or pedestals or exalted places, nothing but gritty, fleshy, bone on bone realness--that's when honest lifelong bonds can happen. This song is that transition. No one can complete you--you're magic wearing skin as is. And sometimes it's good to be alone, at least for a little while.

I sang and played electric, violin, viola. Bryan Elijah Smith added tympani and the slightest hint of bass. In the studio, Bryan was going to pay the electric part but his playing is so perfect that it didn’t quite work the way we wanted it to (he’s just so perfect on guitar!) so he handed me his electric guitar--which is a bit too big for me haha, and what you hear is the result. Lots of sounds of my hands on the strings, lots of overtones. It’s intentionally imperfect and I love the way it leans into the feelings the vocal is trying to confess. No click, it's messy and raw like me.

lyrics

Fallin’ angel, where’ll you make your bed?
Will you stretch across the horizon with the sun to hold you hand?
Alone
Broken lover, where’d you leave your heart?
Is it black, under cover, filled with cracks and holes and scars?
You’re alone, alone
Fallin’ Angel, where will you sleep?
Will you steal a cloud for your pillow with your back against the sea?
You’re alone, alone, alone
You’re alone
mmmmmm

credits

from The Way Down, track released November 19, 2021

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Van Plating Lakeland, Florida

Critically acclaimed indie americana artist and multi-instrumentalist Van Plating has a rugged vulnerability uniquely hers ─ fermented in the orange groves and hot verdant summers of the sunshine state.

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