Water From Your Eyes’ Ween cover is a transmission from the depths of despair
Rachel Brown and Nate Amos have never shied away from confrontation with difficult emotions in their music as Water From Your Eyes — although, as Brown points out in the newest episode of Sounds of Saving’s “Songs That Found Me at the Right Time” series, “It’s ‘Water From Your Eyes,’ not ‘Water From Our Eyes.’” (“We’re not sad, you’re sad,” Amos adds.) The video, directed by Adam Donald and produced in partnership with 988 Crisis and Suicide Lifeline, features Amos and Brown discussing their own experiences of depression, self-destruction, and suicidal ideation before launching into a cover of Ween’s “If You Could Save Yourself (You’d Save Us All).” The criminally underrated closer of Ween’s 2003 album Quebec is a relatively straightforward entry from the notoriously whimsical band, an archetypal Gene Ween sad track that deserves a place in their enormous canon alongside the much-more-mean-spirited “Baby Bitch.” The song opens on an unusual scene — a “free ride home from the embassy” on which the protagonist spots “the governor and his lover holding hands” — but quickly becomes more relatable as themes of isolation, bitterness, and regret enter the fray. Our hero gets back to his place, empties his suitcase, and opens his windows wide.