Canadian band Dizzy tackle a weighty theme in the new single “Barking Dog”: how it’s nearly impossible to not beat yourself up in your 20s over pain that began in childhood. It’s a song drawn from real life; frontperson Katie Munshaw had a family dog that suffered abuse prior to her family’s ownership. In the song she sings: “And no amount of loving, can stop the dog from barking when she’s in pain,” a reflection of the grander themes at play.
Says Munshaw: “This song is mostly about how we’re all just products of our youth, doomed in various ways none of us asked for.”
There’s a Jean-Paul Sartre-style desperation in the “Barking Dog” video that matches the song’s raw emotion. Munshaw flails around in a depressing convenience-store bathroom wearing a mask and a boxing glove, knowing that there’s essentially no exit.
Inner turmoil can nonetheless be beautiful. The song’s haunting melody and Munshaw’s crystalline vocal sound a bit like the introspective work of Wolf Alice. And Dizzy even slips in a nod to poet William Butler Yeats in the outro: “the centre will not hold.”
Dizzy is barking up the right tree with this intriguing song. Watch the “Barking Dog” video below, or find it on streamers.
