Lee Ranaldo Explores Distress on ‘Ambulancer’ – Song Premiere
If you don’t know what an ambulancer is, that’s OK. Neither does Lee Ranaldo. But it is the title of the latest cut off his new solo album, Last Night on Earth, and comes from a place close to his heart. “When this song started out, on acoustic guitar, the riff that I began with reminded me of Neil Young’s ‘Ambulance Blues’ in some way – which is a song I love dearly,” Ranaldo tells Rolling Stone. “It’s turned out nothing like that but that initial spark carried over into the finished lyrics.”
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The track itself finds the Sonic Youth guitarist and his band the Dust charging forward in a melodic, yet agressive manner, with direct allusions to an ambulance being in one’s head and eyeballs filling with blood. If it sounds disturbing, fear not: Ranaldo’s still figuring out if it is indeed that dark. “It’s not yet clear to me what this song is really about. I know what it’s about on the surface, some of it is obvious, but there is something behind those meanings that I haven’t put my fingers on yet. On the surface it’s about someone who is in great distress; at a loss for how to move forward in life, perhaps beyond reach.”
Lee Ranaldo and the Dust’s Last Night on Earth is out October 8th on Matador.