The refrain for Dissimilar South’s lilting, fresh-feeling new single, “Fear of Flying,” which premieres on the INDY Week website today, is simple but devastatingly assertive: “I want you / But I won’t see this through.”
There’s clear-eyed confidence to this assertion that’s matched by Carter Hodge’s vocals, though the song’s airy, tender melody may trick you, once or twice, into thinking this song is about a love story that might get back on track.
Not exactly: “The most honest thing for me to say was that I did want this person and love this person, but I could just feel myself wanting to quit, and in that, I had already lost the fight,” writes Hodge over email. “I wrote the first verse and chorus in New York, while I was away from my home and relationship, and it wasn’t until months following our breakup that I finally had the clarity to write verse two and finish the song. I had to reckon with my mistakes and my unwillingness to own them at the time before I could write the last verse about apologizing.”
Hodge, who plays in Dissimilar South with bandmate Maddie Fisher, says they wrote the song while their romantic partnership with Fisher was unraveling. But while Hodge may write deftly about romantic dissolution, the band is still together and Fisher even joins in on the third verse, in which the bandmate’s intimate musical kinship shines through. The recorded version of the song features Alex Bingham on bass, Joe Westerlund on drums, Joseph Terrell on guitar, and Joe McPhail on piano.
The band’s first full-length album, Tricky Things, releases on May 6. Listen to “Fear of Flying” below.
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