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May 27, 2021 By Mark Redfern Photography by Tonje Thilesen

Squirrel Flower (aka Ella O’Connor Williams) is releasing a new album, Planet (i), on June 25 via Polyvinyl. Now she has shared another song from it, “Flames and Flat Tires,” via a video for the relatively short track. Watch the Lua Borges-directed video below.

“I wrote ‘Flames and Flat Tires’ on my second day of quarantine in Bristol, England ahead of recording,” says Williams in a press release. “It was late August, hot, I was staying in a place that opened onto a party street, and every night I stayed up listening to the sounds of the revelers and the birds squawking and screaming until 6 a.m., then all day watched people hanging laundry in their backyards through my kitchen window. This was one of those tunes that just falls out.”

Borges had this to say about the video: “This video is encased by the imagery of broken parts and abandonment. Objects that have become useless. Physical matter that looks so small inside our world. It gives life to an internal feeling of self-doubt and uncertainty, which the song approaches so intently. But ‘Flames and Flat Tires‘ is also about fighting to overcome that, and staying present fully. In a way, everything that gets discarded needs to immediately use its strength of survival. Even when things get broken down they continue to exist forever. They are also fighting to survive. Metal scraps constantly battling the rust from taking over, or plastic waste that can challenge the most powerful decomposers. It’s the law of nature: everyone wants to survive. The most powerful instinct.”

Previously Squirrel Flower has shared two other songs from Planet (i): “Hurt a Fly” and “I’ll Go Running” (which was one of our Songs of the Week). Williams’ debut album as Squirrel Flower, I Was Born Swimming, came out last year on Polyvinyl.

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