Waxahatchee took the stage at The Late Show to perform her folk-tinged song “Right Back to It.” The musician, Katie Crutchfield, was joined by her band and collaborator MJ Lenderman, who was part of her most recent LP, Tigers Blood.
“Right Back to It” appears on the album and was originally released in January as the LP’s flagship single. The song was written in June 2022, when Crutchfield was backstage at Virginia’s Wolf Trap opening for Sheryl Crow and Jason Isbell.
“I’m really interested in writing love songs that are gritty and unromantic,” she said of the track. “I wanted to make a song about the ebb and flow of a longtime love story. I thought it might feel untraditional but a little more in alignment with my experience to write about feeling insecure or foiled in some way internally, but always finding your way back to a newness or an intimacy with the same person.”
Tigers Blood follows Saint Cloud — which Crutchfield released in the pandemic — and I Walked With You a Ways, a record with Jess Williamson as the duo Plains. Crutchfield will tour in support of Tigers Blood, kicking off in her home of Kansas City on April 18. The trek will hit major cities through late May, pausing in the summer and resuming in Boise, Idaho, on Aug. 19.
“I made the record a year ago, so I’ve been in this anxious headspace for a long time, and it’s been getting more and more ramped up,” Crutchfield recently told Rolling Stone. “And now we’re finally here. The band I’ve put together for this tour is really cool. I think that the shows are going to be really cool.”
She added of the album, “This record, I feel at peace with it. I haven’t listened to it a ton since I made it, and have just tried to compartmentalize and set it aside, partially because I know what’s coming. I’m about to live in it for the next few years. I don’t feel ready to make another record, I don’t feel ready to write new songs for myself. I’m ready to go have the purest experience as an artist to live inside your songs, which is to play them for an audience that’s excited to hear them. I’m sure if you asked me this question in a year, I’m going to be like, ‘God, yes, I’m ready to move on.’ But right now I just feel good.”
