Del Water Gap Draws the Line in “Purple Teeth, The Bravery”
Thalia Eyles
Fresh off the road as the support act on Niall Horan’s North American Tour, Del Water Gap has released “Purple Teeth, The Bravery.” The track is the newest single and the first of two new songs on the deluxe version of his latest album, I Miss You Already + I Haven’t Left Yet.
Photo by Erica Snyder
“Purple Teeth, The Bravery” is a window into a relationship with a partner who is toxic and intoxicated. He manages to balance the weight of the lyrical content with the synthy, bouncing beat to produce a catchy song that is more than meets the eye.
In this track, he describes his relationship viscerally, positioning himself as a punching bag in a relationship with someone with cutting words and a penchant for picking fights. Over a punchy snare and a nostalgic trumpet line, Del Water Gap observes his partner’s cruelty that comes with the loss of their filter when they drink, hence the “purple teeth.”
Del Water Gap contrasts his partner’s apparent obliviousness to the harm they have caused with his torment; his partner’s peaceful sleep contrasts with his sleepless night. They ask him in the morning, “Baby, have you been crying,” either having forgotten what they said while drinking heavily, writing off their drunken actions, “pulling the wool back down over [their] eyes” like Del Water Gap, or soberly able to hold back the mean part of them that intoxication brings out.
Del Water Gap nods to this theme of his complicated relationship with sobriety and the reality of the effects of substances elsewhere in the I Miss You Already + I Haven’t Left Yet album, citing a conversation in which someone told him “I think your music got worse since you went fully sober, at least now you won’t kill yourself” in “Coping on Unemployment.” In both tracks, the pernicious aspects of a doomed relationship are accentuated and exacerbated by substance use. As a life change like sobriety shows up everywhere in life, Del Water Gap notes frequently where sobriety or intoxication plays a hand in the situations he writes about.
“Purple Teeth, The Bravery” easily fits into the sonic picture of the lyrically rich and vaguely 80s-inspired landscape of I Miss You Already + I Haven’t Left Yet while adding something new and nuance to the album's story.
Del Water Gap will continue supporting Niall Horan on the Irish and UK leg of his tour and will perform at both the Maryland and New York shows of the “All Things Go” festival in September.
