“Amnesia” by Dude Low is a fun yet melancholy electro-pop song reminiscent of a lost Tame Impala track. Based on first instinct and sound alone, I expected the song to reflect a mild existential crisis and detachment from reality due to its synth-powered instrumentals and psychedelic feel.
“I’m just looking for some lightning
Climbing out from the dark
I’m just looking for some action
Buried in the abyss”
However, these lyrics suggest otherwise. Not only does Dude Low seem to have a strong grasp of his reality, but he seems to want out of it. There is a sense of longing for adventure and excitement that his reality may be lacking. There’s a lyrical contrast in here, where we find him longing to exit the darkness and simultaneously fall further into it. While the speaker seems to yearn for something more out of his life, he doesn’t quite know what he’s looking for.
I suppose, however, that there is some existentialism buried in the song’s abyss, if you will. I found that the heavy production on the lyrics adds a layer of mystery and unknowingness to the song itself because it’s not entirely clear what Dude Low wants out of this life. It’s arguably symbolic of our own internal psyche. There’s elements of our lives buried in our subconscious that we need to uncover in order for us to find inner peace, but they become blurred and fuzzy when you add the chaos and spontaneity we experience in our everyday, external encounters.
There’s a choice here we all have to make at some point in our lives. Do we want to healthily deal with our conflicts and trauma and try to grow for the better from the experience? Or, is it simply better to just forget the situation, pretend it never happened (the title “Amnesia” is indicative of this idea of repression), and push it deep down into our subconscious? People cope in different ways, and while I myself have attempted to deal with dreadful situations in both of the above ways, I can definitely vouch for the notion that one is more harmful than the other.
When the psychedelic music has you thinking about the essence of Freudian psychology, I suppose it’s existential enough. Regardless, I really enjoyed this song. Dude Low’s upcoming album, Ego Trip, comes out in April, and based on what I’ve heard from him so far, it seems like I may need to take a business day to process the meaning of it all.
