Will Wood - Cicada Days (Official Video)

Created by Angelica Pasquali
A Dawn Point Studios Production
Directed by Will Wood & Angelica Pasquali

Stock footage provided by Pond5
Wattana, GCP, MountAiryFilms, meyblume, dream_one, MaestroVideo, Viesinsh, toa555, mannvoice,

Music & Lyrics by Will Wood
Recorded by Simon Ficken at Backroom Studios in Rockaway NJ & Jonathon Maisto at Kawari Sound in Wyncote PA
Produced by Will Wood
Vater Boris: Bass
Mike Bottiglieri: Guitars, Mandolin, Lap Steel
Mario Conte: Drums
Will Wood: Piano, Baritone Ukulele, Vocals

Special thanks for the following Indiegogo Contributors:
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[tetsupannn]

I love Will Wood i wish cicadas were real

[josephhanicak]

There is a beautiful irony in the fact that the boy who introduced me to this song is now the reason I relate to it so painfully. He was my lover, my partner, and my friend. This is his favorite song, a song that he connected to in the darkest time of his life. In all the times we sat together in my car, driving to places where we could be together, he would put on his music, often this song. He would tell me about his love for it, talk about how it made him feel then, and how the attachment that trauma connection built makes him feel now.

Now he has passed it on, unintentionally of course. The seed of interest he planted first started sprouting when he left for college, 1000 miles away. On the way back from my last time seeing him in Texas, I played Cicada Days and On the Kitchen Floor (his favorites) and cried as I drove home.

We were long distance, something I said I would never do again, but did without hesitation for him. I loved him. I wanted no one else.

With my part time job, I scraped together enough money to visit him two weeks after he left. I paid for it all, booked the flight to Pheonix and bus trip to flagstaff, the hotel to stay at, all of it. I even called in some early birthday presents to help with the cost. In retrospect, of course it was ill advised and impulsive. Yet, it was also exciting and new. A step for independence and self agency to accomplish a goal I very much wanted; see my boyfriend.

Remember that seed he planted? Well, my previous lover stuck around just long enough to see it sprout when he dumped me by text 2 days into a trip taken solely to see him. He was more concerned with spending time with the friends he would have all semester to see than me.

Writing that out is admittedly painful. I feel like a blind, wasteful fool who gave up so much for someone who didn't end up caring for me in the end. In some ways, that is exactly what I am. Yet I cannot also pretend that I could have ever foreseen him acting like that. Even now, I still don't see how the shy, kind, and reserved boy I knew could do that.

So I sit here now, listening to sad songs that remind me of him 2 weeks later at 2:34 am, 2 hours past the end of my 20th birthday.

I know he still thinks of me, not through any direct confirmation, but because I know full well who he is. He knows that what he did was fucked up. He knows all he lost by doing that, things that he will likely not get again from a partner (it is difficult to balance the checking of ego with stating the reality you know to be true). He gave up more than I ended up losing by letting me go.

Of course it was the song about loss that was his favorite. Loss was his companion throughout his life, a tug and pull of circumstances and people. It was all beyond his control, a culmination of the people around him. Yet not this, not me. I was willing to stay, to fight so that I would not be lost to him, and he let me go at the moment I did the most for him. He had moved on from everything that his old life had, his father, sister, stepmother; all the things that defined his life were now gone from him. I thought the one thing he would keep around would be me. He told me he would. I believe that he meant it too. But in the end, the 5 minute walk between my hotel and his dorm room proved to be the chasm between us that 1000 miles of distance wasn't. That was more than he was willing to put in.

In the end, I took more than my love with me on that plane trip home. He gave up more than I brought him, because with me left the last person who cared about him in the way he wanted to be cared for. I sacrificed for him without asking for a return, which he seemed to take as my efforts being worth naught.

I wish I could say that I had moved on, but obviously by the length and timing of this, I have not. I miss him dearly; miss the gay ass music he listened to, miss laughing at the same stupid joke told for the 1000th time, miss holding and loving him. That is the nature of loss; it is the things you took most for granted that you yearn for the deepest. I am too hurt to say that I wish him well, yet never would I want ill upon him either. It is even more difficult when a relationship you didn't think was in question question suddenly ceases like a car hitting a tree at 60 miles per hour.

To be openly honest, I doubt that more than a handful of people will ever read this, and even that is generous. Most likely, I will come back to this comment in many months time and read through my diary shouted into the void that sits comfortably at zero likes. Yet, there is a small part of me (that I try to kill) that secretly hopes he will see this. It is just plausible enough to maybe happen, with the right amount of luck. Yet it very much likely won't, and I know that, yet I hope for it anyways. I suppose some part of me wants him to observe Me, raw and pained, and see the consequences his choices have had on me, even though he likely knows full well.

So here my trauma dump prose ends. I had ideas for some grand concluding tie-together for the song this comment is posted on and all the words I typed out, but they have been lost in the swirling haze of vibrant memories and emotional loose threads to pull at. Thank you for reading.

[orionyxe]

It’s funny Will Wood went from releasing a song about a mouse to one with the title “Cicada Days”, from a quiet animal to a very loud one. Looking forward to hearing the song!

[Siyko]

Grief. Grief is love that can't go where it's supposed to.

[tituslafrombois]

What a FASCINATING song. Like not just the subject matter, but the whole structure of the thing. Missing rhymes, skipped beats, your voice shifting into strange cadences for singular lines, and the explosive ending, it's all so peculiar in the best way possible. Your style has changed so much, but really, all the good parts are still there.

[rbinnn]

I swear this man never EVER has made a bad song. Every single track he did is and will be a bop

[Lunar_Scapes]

This is me from the future and I can say this was a banger. Ascended. Descended. Revolved around the sun. Revolved around the moon.

[marbleferret]

the sudden transition between the bossa nova-esque beat to the hard rock at 3:12 literally sent chills down my spine, what a great song

so far ive noticed that a recurring instrument so far between cicada days and tomcat disposables has been the guitar! not sure if its something that is gonna stick for the whole new album, but it surely has a different vibe compared to the other piano-heavy songs that will wood has :D

[Tasmint]

She said
“it just feels inhumane to lose this much”
One day I know this song will have me crying my eyes out

[hylvic]

The pain of moving on, the anger of helplessness, and the small sigh of relief seeing that all this might work out in the end. This hits in all the most raw places.

[junoismad]

I’m really excited! this is the song that I wanted to hear finished and officially released for so long, shame that I won’t be here to see the premiere.

[robitherat]

Holy fucking SHIT dude the change from a sweet soft song (both from all the demo versions we heard and even just in the beginning of the song) to absolutely fucking SCATHING and loud and cacophonic oh my GOD. Not what I expected from the final song but Jesus Christ it's so good hold shit. oh my god. fuck man.

[cadoized]

the opening line "the greener grass grows where the wildfires fertilize" and the imagery of the forestry and nature going from green and lush at the start to burning in the last chorus, and the ending lines "keep coming back / it works if you work it / so work it, youre worth it / it won't if you dont"
its a continuing loop of things going alright, then crashing and burning, but picking yourself back up to try again, knowing it'll be better this time because of what you've learned
circle of life isnt it

[BAMWB]

There are times where I fear that I've lost the ability to emotionally connect with songs, but then I listen to Will Wood and I'm not worried anymore. There's something indescribably profound about his songs, especially these latest singles. Thank you so much for your art.

[hughjanus]

this is dropping on spotify the same day something major is happening in my life, wow

[GdTaste]

I love it when the beginning of a song sounds like a lullaby and the end devolves into metal

[garbo]

My daughter listens to he's starting to grow on for the music

[JordyFern]

This is beautiful and so wonderfully dynamic. What an amazing range of energy expressed from start to finish. Woah oh wow oh me!

[pssum.mf]

headphones aren't enough, I need this song to be injected into my bloodstream.

[bugjams]

I love how you can either read this as a pretty run-of-the-mill love song about someone you long to see again, *OR* as a scathing and brutally-realistic wake-up call about how humanity is destroying nature beyond repair.

Explanation for those curious:

1.) The lines, "God knows crying ain't gonna change a thing" and "Do nothing, nothing works" refer to how we keep crying about pollution (etc) but can't seem to actually make any big changes happen.

2.) "But I take more than I bring" and "The seasons of cicada days we can't make up" refers to how for every well-intended thing we do for the environment, someone else does 100x the damage.

3.) The imagery at 3:13 pretty much says it all. That was the point where I realized I'm not just reading too deeply into this.

4) The song ends with an uplifting message, that "it works if you work it... one day at a time, " because we _still_ can salvage what we can. Sent off with the message, "Tomorrow's too late, Amen" because we shouldn't wait even another day to take action.