Track by Track is our recurring feature series in which artists guide readers through each song on their latest release. Today, Indigo De Souza takes us through her new album, All of This Will End.
Indie rocker Indigo De Souza has released her latest project, All of This Will End. Her third LP, the record finds the songwriter grappling with each aspect of herself and her sound, clawing her way to find optimism and security.
“I remember having a lot of anxiety during the day, navigating the newly awkward and uncertain experience of doing anything mid-world freakout. I was in an emotional state that felt like a cross between delirious joy and a real, tired hopelessness,” she tells Consequence of the writing experience. “When the neighborhood was asleep, and all the lawn mowers stopped, I felt free to make anything and sing anything I wanted. It was my first time ever living alone. It brought me a lot closer to myself.”
Some songs on All of This Will End reflect that tired hopelessness, sometimes even mining frustration and angst out of such feelings, like the ferocious single “You Can Be Mean.” Others, however, are the sound of the singer centering herself, reminding us of the power of lived experience.
All of This Will End has a lifetime of emotions packed into its 11 tracks, and the sound follows. With a raw, soul-baring mix of indie folk, garage rock, and indie pop, the record is able to find cohesion in its kaleidoscopic approach to the human experience.
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Listen to Indigo De Souza’s All of This Will End below, followed by her Track by Track breakdown.
De Souza will resume her North American tour in May. Tickets are available via StubHub, where orders are 100% guaranteed through StubHub’s FanProtect program. StubHub is a secondary market ticketing platform, and prices may be higher or lower than face value, depending on demand.
“Time Back”:
“Time Back” came from a manic cycle of pain turned into strength and overcoming. Then back to pain. Then anger, and eventually shame. The song is a sonic depiction of the way my pain can sometimes run its course.
“You Can Be Mean”:
I wrote “You Can Be Mean” about a brief, toxic experience I had with a manipulative and abusive LA model fuckboy. However brief, it had a lifelong impact on my understanding of self. Leading up to that experience, I had a history of putting myself in toxic situations and pining for validation from people who treated me poorly. I was stuck in some delusion that I could help abusive people through their trauma and teach them to love me in the way I deserved.
I wrote this song when I finally realized that I could choose not to allow harmful behavior into my life, and that there is a deep, deep importance in protecting the body and spirit. I stopped caring about validation from assholes, stopped thinking it was my responsibility to help them, and started caring for myself in a real way. Once I made that switch in my psyche, I began to manifest truly loving, safe, kind, and communicative people into my life. Being loved in the way I deserve begins with loving myself in the way I deserve. Boundaries are so important. The body is a sacred and fragile thing, and it deserves every ounce of care.
“Losing”:
I wrote “Losing” at a time of great loss and change within my friendships. I was coming to realize the effect of toxic relationships on my life and finding new pathways toward healthier connections. I was coming to understand the importance of boundaries. I was choosing to really sink into acceptance for the natural changes in my world, self, and community.
“Wasting Your Time”:
I actually barely remember writing “Wasting Your Time.” I don’t remember where and when. I just know that I felt deeply fed up with myself and my cyclical mental gymnastics. I felt hopeless against chemical imbalance. I felt like I didn’t deserve people’s time.
Those feelings come up often for me. I’m still learning how to work through them.
“Parking Lot”:
“Parking Lot” is inspired by the many times I’ve felt alone and scared in my car at the grocery store, at work, during break, or at a rest stop. Parking lots are wild — the way they used to be forest, and now we drive all over it all while going places and doing all our little human tasks. It’s funny to be a thing born from nature, but living in spaces that are built against it.
“All of This Will End”:
When I wrote “All of This Will End,” it felt like a turning point in the way I wrote songs. It all came out at once, like a run-on sentence. It felt like an anthem that had been inside me since I was born. A lot of my songs do. It’s strange.
“Smog”:
I remember writing this song during the peak of the pandemic. I was living alone on a dead end street surrounded by neighbors who were seemingly always mowing their lawns. I remember having a lot of anxiety during the day, navigating the newly awkward and uncertain experience of doing anything mid-world freakout.
I was in an emotional state that felt like a cross between delirious joy and a real tired hopelessness. Everything felt unknown and distant. “Smog” is mostly about that strange time and how it felt in my house, alone. When the neighborhood was asleep, and all the lawn mowers stopped, I felt free to make anything and sing anything I wanted. It was my first time ever living alone. It brought me a lot closer to myself.
“The Water”:
I wrote “The Water” as an exercise to get myself out of a writing block. I was just writing with no expectations, and I didn’t think I was actually going to end up using it for anything. It became a really simple exploration of my love for moving water and its presence in my life since I was a child, as well as the scattered memories of a childhood friendship.
“Always”:
I wrote “Always” about my daddy issues and growing up hearing two different versions of memory from my mom and dad and not knowing where reality lands. It’s about having an absent dad and how much pain and confusion I felt because of it. I have since found a lot of acceptance and love toward him and everything that happened.
Everyone is trying the best they can. He wasn’t ready to be a father back then. Some people never are.
“Not My Body”:
“Not My Body” was born from my love of nature, and the many different landscapes the world holds. It’s the most magical thing, and it’s continuously teaching us. Mushrooms, especially, have taught me so much in my life, and I have many beautiful memories of taking them in the swamps of Charleston, South Carolina with my friends and listening to the language of nature all around us.
I wrote this song about how my body is just a part of nature itself and I’m unafraid to return to it someday. I want to be composted when I die, and be used to plant a big pine tree.
“Younger & Dumber”:
“Younger and Dumber” is a flood beam of my emotional and spiritual human experience. My growing up defeated by a world brutally littered with trash, violence and grief, and somehow finding beauty, purpose, and boundless love existing in the same place. This song felt really emotionally intense for me when I wrote it. I was sitting in my house and it kind of flowed right to me as if it had already been written by some other force.
A lot of the lyrics are a nod to the idea that your experiences make you who you are. I endured some heavy darkness and dysfunction when I was a teenager. But if I hadn’t been through those things, I wouldn’t be who I am now. When you’re young, you don’t know any better, but you learn from your experiences, and then you become somebody who’s been alive and learning. It’s also about how heartbreaking that is; to start as a child with vivid curiosity, innocent imagination, and joy, and for the world to end up being kind of brutal to be a part of.
This song is a love letter to everyone’s inner child. No one can prepare us for how insane it is to be alive. How many times we will have to rise from the ashes and what courage it will take.
