Kevin Bronson on May 29th, 2020

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If nothing else, the coronavirus pandemic has illuminated humanity’s increasingly tenuous relationship with the natural world.

“Chorus of Trees,” the new single from husband-wife duo Wait. Think. Fast. speaks to that in the most transcendent of ways. The song, the first new music from Matthew and Jacqueline Santillan Beighley since 2018, is a propulsive, atmospheric rocker with lyrics seemingly plumbed from of an ancient book of poetry.

“Chorus of trees said to the woman, / ‘If only your heart where a slightly greener thing, / we’d drown you in meaning. / If only your heart wasn’t lonely in the ring, / we’d drown you in meaning,’” Santillan sings as Beighley carves up the landscape with guitar and bass.

Says Santillan: “Lyrically, it’s about my relationship to the natural world and to myself, and wondering if those relationships are the exact same? Shouldn’t both of those relationships be sacred, protective and loving?”

The tune, she says, took on new resonance with the onset of the pandemic. “We wrote the song earlier this year and had planned to release early April, and then the world turned upside down,” Santillan explains. “So we decided to wait. Lately, we started feeling like this song is perfect for right now.”

It’s a widescreen song for an equally large worldview. It’s not hard to think of how entitlement poisons as Santillan dreamily repeats the chorus, “You have everything you need,” or of life’s simple bounties as she fades to, “Heaven all around you / I’ll surround you.”

Here’s to looking at the world through that lens, for five beautiful minutes.

||| Stream: “Chorus of Trees”

||| Previously: “Pleno Verano,” “Endless Serenade,”  “Count No Count,” “Luces del Sur” and “Vuelve al Mar”