Behind the Song: MJ Lenderman Guest Stars on Waxahatchee’s “Right Back to It”

Katie Crutchfield records music under the name Waxahatchee, named after the Alabama creek near where she grew up.

Her 2024 single “Right Back to It,” with MJ Lenderman, ponders returning to someone familiar. It appears on Crutchfield’s latest album Tigers Blood.

But the song isn’t about reverting to a failsafe relationship. Instead, she finds novelty in someone she knows. “Right Back to It” is the cleared thicket, revealing what she might have missed. It’s the tenuous resolve to sit still. At least for a little while.

Finding a Way Back

Crutchfield told Rolling Stone she “wanted to make a song about the ebb and flow of a longtime love story. I thought it might feel untraditional but a little more in alignment with my experience to write about feeling insecure or foiled in some way internally, but always finding your way back to a newness or an intimacy with the same person.”

Photograph of us
In a spotlight, on a hot night
I was drifting in and out
Reticent on the off chance
I’m blunter than a bullseye
Begging for peace of mind

The comfort of a familiar person, an old love, offers a soft landing from Crutchfield’s insecurities. But it’s not about taking someone for granted. It’s the opposite. The hindrance she feels is trying to keep up with her partner’s “blank check,” the unconditional love.

I’ve been yours for so long
We come right back to it
I let my mind run wild
I don’t know why I do it
But you just settle in
Like a song with no end
If I can keep up
We’ll get right back to it

Being There

In 2022, Crutchfield was writing backstage at Wolf Trap in Virginia, at a gig opening for Sheryl Crow and Jason Isbell. That song became “Right Back to It.”

The single features producer and bass player Brad Cook and his brother Phil on banjo. The warm track is sparse and roomy, driven by a light-touch drum groove from Spencer Tweedy. (Tweedy is the son of Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy.)

For Lenderman’s contribution, his voice is supportive and delicate. He’s calming and familiar, the steadiness against Crutchfield’s accumulating anxiety.

Tigers Blood is Crutchfield’s follow-up to Saint Cloud, which arrived during the pandemic. “I made the record a year ago, so I’ve been in this anxious headspace for a long time, and it’s been getting more and more ramped up,” she said. With a touring band to perform the songs, knowing they are complete, Crutchfield has found peace.

Just Like Evan Dando

The music video for “Right Back to It” was filmed on Caddo Lake in Texas. Crutchfield had been trying to make a video on a boat for a decade, but the difficulties of filming on the water stood in the way every time.

The Lemonheads’ clip for “Mrs. Robinson” inspired Crutchfield to slow-cruise around on a boat in her video. When Lenderman’s voice enters during the chorus, the camera cuts to the guitarist steering and singing beneath a mass of curly hair.

Her steady partner in the song is brought to life in the visual metaphor of Lenderman steering the boat.

Newness in an Old Friend

Albums are time stamps in a songwriter’s life. The songs, little chapters. Sometimes they can be even smaller pieces. Little notes. Or, as Tori Amos once wrote, “Little Earthquakes.” Revisiting songs on tour can be cathartic. However, the anxieties that inspired the songs do linger. 

Though “Right Back to It” arrived in January, it feels summery. Barefoot Americana and you picture a kind of indie jug band on the porch—banjo, guitars, acoustic drums, and voices in a light wind.

But Crutchfield and Lenderman’s roots music doesn’t live in nostalgia. Like Wilco before them, they lean into punk rock’s upheaval. This is heard in the D.I.Y. distortion of Crutchfield’s earlier releases. The defiant spirit remains in the clear and easy recordings of Tigers Blood and Saint Cloud.

On “Right Back to It,” Crutchfield finds newness in an old friend. It parallels her music, finding new ways to reorient folk and country music.

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Photo by Erika Goldring/Getty Images for Americana Music Association