Nicki Bluhm has released the video for “Battlechain Rose,” one of the songs off her forthcoming album To Rise You Gotta Fall, out June 1 via Compass Records. The album grapples with the recent break-up of Bluhm’s marriage and her ensuing relocation to Nashville from San Francisco.
“Battlechain Rose,” co-written with Ryan Adams, was born out of a particular dark-night-of-the-soul experience. Here’s what Bluhm had to say about the tune’s genesis:
“Hoping to wake from a nightmare and realizing I had not yet found sleep, ‘Battlechain Rose’ came on a restless night when the wheels of my mind wouldn’t stop turning. Steeped in disbelief of my own reality, I could find no peace, only time to pass. I scribbled down my thoughts and visions on a scrap of paper upon the nightstand, and finally, the relief of sleep came.
I awoke the next morning with a pit in my stomach and the song still in my head. I spent all morning working on the melody when a mid-day call from a curious friend (Ryan Adams) came in. I showed him what I was working on and he liked it.
Unstoppable and oozing with creativity and excitement, he lent some beautiful imagery and phrasing and so was born a collaborative piece. What became is a delicate dance of telling hard truths and painful admissions, ‘an animal dangerous by nature, and but half-tamed by art.’ The words resonated with me so deeply and writing it allowed me to come to grips with what my life had become and helped me make some sense of the swirling emotions that ensued. It was the most unusual and crooked flower I’d ever seen grow, and so became the song of ‘Battlechain Rose.’”
Watch the video, which was directed by Scot Sax, below.