Sometimes you just have to stop and let your muscles – particularly those you use to smile – take control while you move just because it makes you happy. After you do that, all your muscles work better, including the ones between your ears and the one in your chest. That is exactly Anna Egge’s new song “Wait a Minute” from the forthcoming album Between Us does – it gives all of your muscles a joyful moving break while it asks you to slow down and listen so you can understand other points of view.
Anna is very clever and very attuned to human nature. She understands that while moving on the dance floor – or the sidewalk or the pier in Memphis in the Marta Renzi video of the song – may be easy and fun, moving from your tightly held social or political beliefs can be hard. She tells us in the refrain “ “If you want to move/You have to get uncomfortable.” while getting you moving on your feet and smiling.
She is also clever in her understanding that encasing a tough message in a sweet song can often get through when words alone won’t; as John Legend says, “Preach, but use music to deliver the message.” Or as she says, “Oftentimes things can be worked out if we take the time to slow down together and talk and listen. ”
Which is precisely what Egge does, starting slow and drawing people in with a light touch and spare instrumentation and then delivering the message with the hooky “wait a minute /why don’t you slow down” chorus. She has you at that point; you love the music and the message slides in as you dance. And the message that slides in is exactly the message we need today, wrapped in the music we love. Put “Wait a Minute” on repeat and let your smile muscles take over.
“Wait Minute” by Anna Egge can be streamed on Spotify. The full album,
Between Us, will be available in September. Presave on Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, deezer.
Anna Egge: https://www.anaegge.com/
Patrick O’Heffernan, Music Sin Fronteras
