The Duds: When He Danced With Me/Your Dead Heart
It’s October. The leaves are changing colour, the nights are getting colder and the shadows are growing long.
Halloween is coming.
For me, the Halloween season is about more than trick-or-treating and macabre decor; it is also a celebration of imagination. From telling terrifying tales to creating costumes and carving pumpkins (or turnips), the season is about making something new, as the last vestiges of the vibrant, summer world dieaway.
The Duds, too, seem to see it as a time of creativity. The St. John’s-based duo has just unleashed their creative spirit on two brand new songs — songs crafted with Halloween in mind.
The first, ‘When He Danced With Me,’ takes the listener on a dramatic dance with temptation… and maybe the devil himself. While it’s sinister-sounding and halloween-appropriate, it’s thought-provoking too. It’s a sort of reckoning, I think; a coming to terms with wanting something labelled as ‘sinful’.
The second track, ‘Your Dead Heart’ is about falling in love with something that’s bad for you… like ‘demon-bad’ for you. It’s relatable. Who among us has not been seduced by something, or somebody, we ought to have let pass us by? It’s full of big emotion and beautiful. Melanie O’Brien’s vocals soar here.
They are both great pop songs that belong not only on your Halloween playlists but in rotation all year long. Get them on all the usual streaming services.
You can hear The Duds (Melanie O’Brien and Philip Goodridge) chat with me about ‘When He Danced With Me’ and ‘Your Dead Heart’ (and a lot of other songs and projects) on the latest episode of the ‘Strange Truths and Tall Tales’ podcast.
Listen here:
Listen to The Duds and a whole lot of other great music from Newfoundland and Labrador on the NL Mixtape.
Got music recommendations for me?
Send them to: robert@productofnewfoundland.ca
