Squirrel Flower – Say a Prayer to the Gods of Getting Going | Album Review
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Polyvinyl Record Co.
There’s an easy-to-understand romanticism when it comes to living a nomadic lifestyle. In its purest, most idealized form, your life has no rules; you simply make up your day as it goes along. The thought of being able to get up and go on a whim is one that many people dream of but can’t ever live. It’s a glamorous fantasy to imagine that one day you could be at a swanky bar in Los Angeles, then, on a whim, drive to the flat Midwest plains of Kansas. Maybe you’re struck with a sudden urge to venture north and visit the lush vegetation of the Pacific Northwest or head south to chase the warm weather. There are certain people who thrive with this sort of freedom, people who seem recharged, not drained, by that feeling of constant motion. Ella Williams is one of those people.
The more I listen to the music of Ella Williams, better known by her stage name Squirrel Flower, the more I believe that this world is made for her. While her body may be based in Chicago when she’s at rest, her mind and soul will always be on the open road. Spiritually, Williams reminds me of Frances McDormand’s character in the Academy Award-winning film Nomadland. The music that Williams creates is a striking blend of raw, naturalistic, and ultra-relatable emotions. These revelations are channeled through her powerful voice and backed by reverb-drenched guitar in her early work, but scaled up to loud, cacophonous fury on more recent outings.
The last project we left off with Squirrel Flower was in 2023 with Tomorrow’s Fire. That record was a seminal highlight for Williams that offered the best music of her career thus far. Songs like “Full Time Job,” “Stick,” and “Canyon” had the capacity to be thunderous and devastating, but possessed a quiet, centering storm within them. To back her up, Williams assembled an all-star team of indie musicians, including MJ Lenderman and members of Bon Iver and the War On Drugs, all putting in full-time shifts. Above this instrumental landscape, Williams’ ironclad voice brought an intensity to the songs that were her loudest to date. The results came back positive, resulting not just in one of the best indie records, but one of the best albums of that year.
On her fourth studio LP, Say a Prayer to the Gods of Getting Going, Williams continues to reflect the world as she sees it by amplifying what she does best. The loud moments are almost deafening while the quiet parts grasp for humanity in silence. All the while, Williams is a sturdy and reliable presence acting as the calm in the eye of the storm.
There’s something to be said about how a change of scenery can influence your writing. A song written in the shadow of a towering New Mexico rock formation should sound different than one written while sitting beside a babbling brook in the middle of nowhere. Given how many times Williams has toured the country, both solo and with her rotating cast of road dog musicians, the influence of her accumulated miles is evident. Throughout this record, Williams sings about the physical landscapes of states like Indiana and California, but also the elements within them like the scorching-hot desert sun, foot-thick ice, and gusts of wind found on mountaintops. The opening title track sets the scene as an ear-splitting slow burner where the gods of “getting going” and “standing still” are held with equal reverence, because, sure, it’s great to be out there moving through the world, but if you don’t stop to take it all in, then what’s the point?
The folk-inspired lead single, “Reelin,” is situated appropriately halfway through the album with shimmering acoustic guitar strokes that feel like a summer drive through the heartland. It’s a song about addiction to life on the road, contrasting flashes of normalcy in Williams’ life (“Drink my coffee / Do my chores / Trash on Sunday”) with the yearning to pack up a suitcase and leave on a whim as she sings “Oh mama I didn’t miss him / But he’s reelin’ me back again.” One song earlier, the subdued “Highway Woman” presents the restless heart of the album with Williams telling the story of a woman packing nothing but her guitar and a knife as she hits the road.
One of the best songs on Say A Prayer to the Gods of Getting Going is “Cleveland,” where the distorted guitars hit like a freight train and have more muscles than Jean-Claude Van Damme. This track is a love letter to an overlooked city with Midwestern roots that finds itself on the outskirts of the East. It’s a city without a true home, which makes it hard to romanticize, yet the lyrics manage to find an underdog charm to it. Williams’ voice soars sky-high as she sings about liking a boy who doesn’t want to move, qualifying, “He’s cute, but he doesn’t like Cleveland.” She easily could have been singing about former Chicago Bulls center Joakim Noah, who famously said: “I never heard anybody say ‘I’m going to Cleveland on vacation.” In the end, “a few degrees of separation” provide some clarity to the other party’s lack of adventurousness and desire to take this leap, so Williams decides to hit the road solo, singing, “Guess I’ll go east on my own.”
One of the heaviest songs on the album, “Foot Thick Ice,” feels like being caught in the middle of a Pacific Northwest rainstorm, starting gradually before building up to a torrential body-soaking downpour. The heavy feedback and guitar fuzz combine to create a sludgy tone that is beautiful as it is grimey. The soft-hard-soft guitar patterns feel like a modern approximation of the style popularized by countless PNW bands in the nineties. Immediately following, “Sick Tooth” has a little New York attitude, with Williams embracing a cool, nonchalant way of singing that Kim Gordon perfected in her heyday. Here, Williams puts her own spin on the old adage of “wherever you go there you are” by addressing the fact that new environments might seem like a solution or an escape, but often just end up presenting new problems of their own. It’s a rapid-fire rager with the shortest runtime on the album, coming in at only a minute and forty seconds. The song knows its exact assignment comes in, raises hell, and leaves.
After the solitary sting of “Fought a Hornet,” Squirrel Flower hop back out to the West Coast for “Surfing USA,” which not only evokes The Beach Boys, but feels like a ride down the California coastline. On this track, Williams showcases her graceful vocal harmonies as she alludes to heartbreak while trying to ride off into the sunset on her bike. The shimmering guitar licks are just the cherry on top of the sundae for such a beautiful song.
Say A Prayer to the Gods of Getting Going is as spacious as the plains of the Midwest and as textured as the rock spires of South Dakota. Each song feels like a portrait of Williams, her travels, and truths found out on the road. The record plays out like a sonic scrapbook, presenting these lessons with the understanding that the experiences aren’t universal, but the path that connects them is. Through these glimpses into her own life, Williams inspires the listener to find their own driving force, their own incantation, their own prayer to the gods of getting going. There’s an endless network of roads with the possibility to deliver you to new experiences, relationships, and emotions, and that all starts as soon as you step out your front door. Get going. Stand still. Open yourself up to something new. Even if it’s just a half step away from your normal routine, you might be surprised what’s waiting for you.
David is a content mercenary based in Chicago. He’s also a freelance writer specializing in music, movies, and culture. His hidden talents are his mid-range jump shot and the ability to always be able to tell when someone is uncomfortable at a party. You can find him scrolling away on Instagram @davidmwill89, Twitter @Cobretti24, or Medium @davidmwms.
