Ane Brun Dreams of Renewed Planet During Pandemic on “Feeling Like I Wanna Cry”

As the world remains at a halt during the current global pandemic, Norwegian singer-songwriter Ane Brun can’t help but think how it’s all linked to the destruction of our environment and what, if anything, will change when this has passed.

Brun explores the withering of the planet, the current COVID pandemic and what lies in the future of our existence on single “Feeling Like I Wanna Cry,” off her ninth studio album (currently untitled), and follow up to 2017’s Leave Me Breathless, out this fall on Ballroom Ranger Records. 

Brun originally started piecing the song, co-written with Hederos, together last year after feeling for a long time that humans have been on the wrong track from the breakdown of biodiversity and her hope that somehow the destruction of the environment would end.

Produced by Brun, Anton Sundell, Martin Hederos, and recorded at the Atlantis Studios and Studio Bruket, the atmospheric and eery “Feeling Like I Wanna Cry” came out of a dream Brun once had. In this dream, someone had created a solution for the climate emergency where the earth would stop rotating for an entire minute then restart again as a kind of reboot and renewal.

“It would be like a reboot of the whole system, and we would get a second chance of making everything alright again,” says Brun, who is curious how this current shutdown due to the coronavirus may, or may not, impact our future choices when it comes to protecting the planet.

The video, directed by abstract Swedish artist Martin Bergström, features striking stop motion visuals of wilting and blossoming flowers, depicting a planetary demise and rejuvenation. ”When Martin told me a year ago about an idea for a video he wanted to create,” says Brun, “I immediately thought about this song.” Brun also pulled in photographer Tomas Klemetsson for the video’s stark, floral visuals.

“One of the things this pandemic has shown us is that we can act, and we are willing to make rapid structural changes to improve our conditions for survival on this planet,” Brun tells American Songwriter.

She adds that in some way, this involuntary lockdown has given the planet a moment to rejuvenate and breath again with out the air and other pollutants. In the end, Mother Earth moves on without us.

“Now we just have to realize that the climate emergency is a similar threat to our existence, even though it is a slow moving process,” she says. “We have to accept that this crisis is also something that needs to be dealt with immediately, just like a pandemic.”